How to be a Good Airline Pilot, With Steve McNeilly

By John Zimmerman
Jan 14, 2025
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Pilot's Discretion Podcast, episode 95

Not all airline careers are smooth, but veteran pilot Steve McNeilly says the rewards make the turbulence worthwhile. He talks about the value of building experience in piston twins, learning to land the Boeing 737, and what it means to be a professional pilot. Steve also built a full-scale Vulcan bomber simulator, so he talks about the process of building one-of-a-kind sims and explains why he’s so interested in jets from the 1950s. In the Ready to Copy segment, you’ll learn what it was like to fly the DC-8, why the A&P certificates are so hard to earn, and why playing music and flying airplanes are similar.

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Quotes:

What it takes to make aviation a career: “You have to have this dying, never-ending passion to make it happen.”
The new generation of airline pilots: “I’m very impressed with the job that they do. I don’t see any difference with the younger generation first officers coming on board.”
First landings in the 737: “I pranged it on pretty hard. To this day, I remember those landings. I was afraid I’d dropped the overhead masks or something.”
The value of earning a CFI before flying for an airline: “Flight instructing really gives you tremendous perspective and additional knowledge… it really fine tunes your skills.”
Why all pilots should strive to be professional: “It’s essential to be a professional no matter what you do. So the word professional doesn’t mean that you fly for a career or that it’s your job.”
What Steve learned flying an Aztec for a charter operator: “One of the biggest things was learning to say no.”
Prospects for new pilots: “I think that this era of being a pilot is certainly the best I’ve ever seen. There are so many opportunities.”
Advice for new captains: “It’s a combination of being kind to your crew… and doing literally what we call servant leadership.”
Why Steve built a Vulcan simulator: “The light bulb went on and I figured, I gotta have one of those. I had never built a flight simulator before.”
What the early British jets did: “They shrunk the world with this jet engine technology. They made it possible to cut in half the flying time.”
Fun fact about the DC-8: “Everything was unique about it: some good, some bad… the two inboard engines, you could put them in reverse in flight to increase your rate of descent.”
How flying and playing music are similar: “When you get in an airplane, you’re on stage. It’s go time. You can’t pause. And being on stage as a musician, it’s the same thing: it’s go time. If you make a mistake, you have to keep going.”