Ah, the sky. The next frontier. You’re an explorer now. Is that a bird? Is it a plane? Yes. It’s a plane. We’re going to prepare you to be the Lewis and Clark of that cloudy big blue.

As a Commercial Airline Pilot, you’re going to be flying monstrous, gravity defying machines called airplanes. They are going to be full of people you don’t know, a bunch of sassy stewards and stewardesses you do know telling these people you don’t know to shut up and stay seated and cargo. There will also be a drink cart if you get thirsty and want a refreshing cola.

You’d think auto-pilot would have it all figured out for us and you could just kick back and read a copy of Martha Stewart living while the plane took everybody to Europe. But this is no cakewalk (it’s more of a cakefly—and that is super tough). Where you’re going, you don’t need roads, which actually makes things more complicated unlike Bruce Springsteen would have us believe.

Before you even make it into the air, you have to go through college. Most commercial airline pilots have a Bachelor Degree (in any subject you want!!), so if you were hoping to skip the college process, this might not be the best path. On the bright side, you can pass the time in the sky by putting that Philosophy degree to work and thinking about existence while you fly.

Once you make it through college, you’re going to need a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued commercial pilot’s license. And, hot dog, does this require some rigorous training and education! Bad news for those of you who thought you could just slap a sticker on your driver’s license, but the DMV doesn’t cover aircraft (they already seem swamped with work in the car department based on how slow those lines move). To get your license, you need to go to ground school, or, if you’re particularly fancy, you can get your own private instructor (FAA approved, of course). Then it’s back to the books to pass a written ground school test, followed by logging a total of 250 hours of flying. And you can’t just spend it cruising and doing loop-d-loops through the air; you have to allot special time to certain conditions and maneuvers.

And after you’ve mastered all of those conditions, you go for a check-ride, which is a lot like a driver’s test, except for the fact that it’s a lot more difficult. And instead of a grumpy DMV employee who is waiting for you to fail so he can get the donut he’s jonesing for, it’s a Federal Aviation Administration examiner who is (hopefully) less grumpy. The FAA examiner will ask you to plan a flight, quiz you on aviation matters, and then come with you for that big ride in the sky. Just like a driver’s test, the examiner is going to ask you to execute certain maneuvers and direct your flying until they dub you worthy of the commercial pilot’s license.

We wish we could tell you you’re set after this, but you’ve got, like, at least four more things to take care of. You’ll need a medical certificate (first or second class) to be allowed to fly an airplane alone. All you have to do is pass a medical examination by an FAA-authorized examiner. We know you thought that once you passed gym class in high school, you’d never be forced to be in “good shape” again and you could turn into the “good shape” of your lumpy, bloated couch, but not as a pilot. You’re going to want to be in tip-top shape to meet the health and fitness requirements of flying.

Okay, now that you’re an Adonis with perfect cholesterol, you’re going to need an instrument and multi-engine rating. The instrument rating will determine whether you can weather the weather and fly with low visibility (adverse weather and clouds) As they say about pilots (and mailmen): Neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night will stop the pilot. (But a thunderstorm might.) You’ll need to go through the same bells and whistles as before, but pass instrument ground school, fly a certain amount of hours without visibility, and pass an instrument rating check-ride. For the multi-engine rating, you’ll have to take some more lessons and pass a multi-engine check-ride. It’s like school’s out for never.

Now if you don’t want to be the Clark to somebody else’s Lewis, you can get yourself out of that co-pilot seat by—you guessed it—more school stuff!! You must pass another written test, have a first-class medical license (so swap that burger lunch for a salad already Mr./Mrs. Hypertension), and log 1,500 flight hours, including 250 hours as the pilot in command. That’s 62 days in the sky without sleep. You may want to spread it out.

Now you’re ready to take the people to their Caribbean Island to get embarrassing cornrows that they will show off in the office next Monday. That is, if you’re up to gaining the thousands of hours (Literally. That is not hyperbole.) of experience required to fly the major airlines. The most experienced pilot on a plane will be the captain or pilot in command, while the runner up will be copilot—also known as first officer or second in command. You might want to start small in order to get that experience while working for the regional or commuter planes. Take a family to Minnesota or something! There are no small flights, just boring cities.

Before you take off and after you land (the most complicated parts of flying a plane. Did we mention that? Oops), you’ll need to check the overall condition of the aircraft. If so much as a screw is loose, you could find yourself crashed in Sierra Nevada starting up another Donner Party (and that is not nearly as fun as it sounds). Before take off, you’ll want to make sure the aircraft is balanced and below it’s weight limit (hopefully not a lot of people are planning to bowl/lift weights/sculpt a large block of marble on their trip). You’ll want there to be enough fuel to get you there, to know what the weather conditions are (and that you can fly through them), and to submit a flight plan to air traffic control. A fender bender in the sky is going to be a lot trickier, so this will help you avoid it altogether.

Now that you’ve avoided cannibalism (congratulations), you’re going to take off. You may have to greet the people in the back beforehand with something like “This is your Captain speaking. Blah Blah Blah, flight details, Have a nice flight.” Try to put them at ease. Don’t say, for example, “This is my first time flying a plane full of people, so let’s hope we make it out okay because there’s supposed to be some funky turbulence and horrible conditions for a newbie like me.” This will most likely be the only customer interaction you have (unless the airline makes you handle some of the customer complaints—like you don’t already have your hands full giving those people the miracle of human flight), so make it count! Throw in a joke. Make those people smile.

When you’re in the air, a lot of the flight duties will be automated and, those that aren’t, you’ll often switch off between your copilot, so you can rest those baby blues of yours on the long flights. You’ve got to have a whole lot of teamwork to work with this guy because, if you cheese off the second in command, you could have a huge mess on your hands and lives on your conscience. You’ll also have to talk to air traffic control the whole time to make sure everything runs smoothly. Cooking their noodle wouldn’t be good for you or your passengers, either.

This is not a 9-5 gig, Dolly Parton. Your hours are irregular. You’ll work 75 hours a month cruising the sky and 150 hours the rest of the month doing other duties. You’ll be something like a space cowboy (but really more of a sky cowboy), because you’ll never be in one place for long.—you could have overnight layovers up to three times a week! You and all the flight attendants will constantly have a bag packed, moving from town to town, probably defeating age-old bandits that have harassed the community if you have time between flights, and then you’ll be on your way again, flying through that open sky, never to be heard from again. But you’ll get hotel accommodations, transportation to and from the airport, and an allowance for meals and other expenses. So you’re a rich cowboy.

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