About this blog

Welcome to Flying For a Living.

This blog is about just what its title suggests: people who fly for a living. To put a finer point on that, it is about people who work aboard aircraft in the civilian air transport industry -- airlines, air charter, air cargo, and corporate aviation.

I do not fly for a living. I'm a research psychologist. For the past four years or so my work has focused exclusively on the health and well-being of people who do fly for a living.

I hope to accomplish several things with the Flying For a Living blog:

First, I will use this blog as a way to feed back results from my research to all of the people who have participated in my studies. Had they not agreed to fill in survey questionnaires, show up for focus groups, and patiently answer my interview questions, I would not have any research results to report in the first place!

Next, I hope that this blog will serve as an information source for anyone who wants to learn about what the lives of people who fly for a living are really like. I find that people outside the aviation community really do not understand much about the industry or about the lives of the people who make it run. On occasions when I have given talks about my research to people who do not work in aviation, I have been struck by how surprised they are about many of the things I have to say. I get a lot of comments of the "I never knew that!" variety -- and many, many curious questions. Now I can direct them to this blog 'for further information.'

Finally, I intend to use this blog to add another dimension to the writing I do about these topics. I'm continually in the process of writing some article or paper, or preparing a conference presentation about my research. I'm also working on a book-length manuscript about what I've learned from my work with people who fly for a living. I think it will be both useful and fun to ponder topics, and muse about details of what I'm writing about for those more formal outlets, but in this very informal way -- and I'm hoping that readers of this blog will use the Comments to add their remarks or ask a question. Dialogue is good!

I hope you enjoy Flying For a Living.