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I thought I’d take some time to share my favourite aviation related videos from YouTube. Since early 2000s, I’ve watched many, many flying videos on YouTube and over the next few weeks, I’ll cover some of these with the reasons why I find the videos credible and worthy of me recommending to you. The content has been inspiring when sitting examinations, motivational during training and incredibly enjoyable when watching as a current airline pilot. Their creators are talented film makers as well as respectable aviators. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I do.
This first group are all airline pilots. I’ll start with the earliest video.
Kent is an American Airlines pilot, and his video was one of the first I watched on YouTube. The footage chronicles two long haul flights from Boston to Paris and back and also shows the layover time in between flights. It deserves a little leeway as video creation has improved dramatically since this was created in 2004, but the music is good and content is quite amusing and incredibly accurate compared with my experiences as a long haul pilot. I can relate to the feeling at time 3:25 very well – long haul flying is extremely tiring and the change in time zones never stops being a challenge!
This airline Captain flies the A320 series (mainly in Brazil it looks like from the videos) and has captured some stunning footage and overlaid some brilliant music to accompany what we’re seeing as he goes about his work. At 1:07, he is flying a visual manoeuvre for landing in the Airbus at Rio de Janeiro’s smaller airport, Aeroporto do Rio de Janeiro RJ Santos Dumont. This is a challenging piece of flying and produces some incredible views.
The next video contains more of the same, with some pleasant night time footage, and also the same approach as above, but slightly more inclement weather! Skip to 1:03 to find.
Another Rodrigo classic, but some nice footage of the crew operating the Airbus. Enjoy!
Swayne is a First Officer at Envoy Airlines, which operate Embraer aircraft for American Airlines under the American Eagle banner. In his series of videos, you can follow him from his first flights in light aircraft, his first paid flying job in Hawaii, right through to being online as an airline pilot in the USA. I’ve chosen three of my favourites to show you below, but this young chap can produce very professional looking, informative, balanced and enjoyable videos. I recommend subscribing to his channel and watching his other content.
The first video I have selected is called ‘First Day As An Airline Pilot, Hawaii Style’. His first airline job was flying the Cessna Caravan for Mokulele Airlines as a First Officer. All is explained in the video.
The second video I’ve chosen is called ‘A Day In The Life Of An Airline Pilot’. I can relate to this video very closely as I’m currently a short haul airline Captain, and Swayne accurately portrays some of the challenges and periods of time we face every day in our work. In particular, the long days, multiple aircraft swaps/setting up and the time in between flights. It also shows how difficult leading a healthy lifestyle is for an airline pilot!
My final video from Swayne Martin is ‘Airline Pilot: Top Ten Things I Should’ve Known’ and is a must watch for any aspiring airline pilot. From bidding for work, commuting and pay he details many particulars that are often unknown by those outside the industry and I’d consider the video very balanced and accurate. However, this is USA airline specific and not all is applicable to the way airlines operate elsewhere.
I’ll continue this series covering other videos I have found interesting and include other channels I recommend following and indeed follow myself. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the content so far – there’s much more to come!