What my Flight Instructor Told me OPENED MY EYES

As a student pilot in Asian Institute of Aviation, Philippines, I can say that I am currently living my best life. Subic beaches, A LOT of free time and aeroplanes, what else do you need ?

It was just a random day during our Ground School when my instructor told us something that I might never forget.

In the school, we generally have classes with 5–6 students on each batch with one instructor. Because it was our first few days in the school, we were in normal casual dress and not the formal uniform.

Our instructor, in the Philippine-based flight school was, however, a Burmese. 3–4 years older than me and absolutely cheerful. He had some hard-to-spell name so we would simply call him “Captain NowNow”. Cute and chubby, I could say that he was THE funniest guy in the whole Subic Bay Freeport Zone. Although he was absolutely experienced, he would appear, from outside, as if he had no idea about flying what-so-ever.

Pilots have bars on their shoulders. A single bar is for student pilots. The number of bars will increase with the experience and a captain will have 4 bars on his shoulders. Captain NowNow had 4 bars with him too.

Captain’s Shoulder Bar

Because we didn’t have a proper uniform at the time, we didn’t have any bars on shoulders as well. As a student, I would say to myself, “One day, I will also be a captain and wear 4 bars on my shoulder. I could easily get a lot of likes on my photo and people would love me for being a pilot.”

But I always had a confusion about Cap NowNow. I never saw him wearing the 4 bars on his shoulder while he was with us. I mean, damn, he worked his a** off to get those 4 bars and now he looks like a lame student with a plain white shirt on, without even a proper tie. Wouldn’t it be SO AMAZING to walk around the town showing off the bars ? I was always confused.

It was then one day when a friend of mine finally asked him the question I always wanted to ask.

“Cap NowNow ?” “Yes ?” “Why don’t you wear the shoulder bars ? Why is it always inside your bag ?”

Eyes un-blinked, I was looking at him with my ears crying to hear the answer. Then he finally told us something that was a huge lesson in my life already.

As a student, I saw life of a pilot very fascinating. I thought I would look like a celebrity flexing my shoulder bars on social media if I became a professional pilot with a title of Captain. But what I forgot was that this title also comes with a huge huge responsibility which I realized after hearing Cap NowNow’s answer…

I don’t wear shoulder bars except when I am flying. These bars feels very heavy on my shoulders. You see me fooling around, being clumsy, walking carelessly and looking like a lame student who has no idea of flying, I can’t be like that after I have these bars on. So before doing anything stupid wearing these bars, always remember that you have huge responsibilities on your shoulders. A responsibility of you, your actions, your words and a responsibility of whole aviation professionalism.

Thanks for Reading Captai…Sovit…Just Sovit today.