This is a long shot, but I want to put the power of social media and federation to the test.
My son wants to become a commercial airline pilot when he’s grown up. It would be awesome if we could find a commercial pilot in the fediverse that we can follow and ask questions of.
If everyone who reads this could boost it, it would be much appreciated and it would mean the world to my son if he could get in touch with a real-life commercial pilot! ✈️
Surely there are some Usenet groups about aviation, even if I'm not aware of them (and, alas, not a lot of people uses Usenet anymore).
Perhaps a starting point, better than nothing, could be the aviation section of Stackexchange:
Hello @alan ,
I am not (yet) a professional pilot, but grew up on small airfields. So I can help with the first steps into a glider of the local flying clubs. This is easier than you think and already possible at the age of 14 (in Germany).
You are welcome to follow me here. If there is any question, don't hestitate to ask me.
My grandfather was a passionate glider pilot and later in his life he added the Light Sports Aircraft class on top.
After finishing my studies I joined my local flying club and am currently training for the PPL(A) license. the plan is to extend this afterwards to a CPL(A) and start the flight instructor training.
I fly multiple planes.
Diamond HK36 & DA20
Maule MX-7
Arcus M
DG-1000T
Grob G 103
So it's a mix of multiple aircrafts. SEPs and Gliders 
The picture was taken on board of a DA20, 5 minutes after departure in the climb phase.
@david Thanks for the suggestions!
Someone else already suggested Chris but not Pandora Parrot 👍🏻
@alan In case you missed any, I've made a chart of the responses:
@alan I wrote a tool a while ago. It's slow, and currently I trigger it by hand, but I'm looking at creating a robot that people can invoke via a toot and see how it goes.
I'd welcome your thoughts.
Click on any node to see the original toot.
@alan if your son would like to learn about aviation safety, which (after enough raw info absorbed) shines a light on the fact that aerospace requires some of the most intense cooperation of any human activity, I would recommend checking avherald.com on a regular basis.
since it describes accidents, you may want to check the content first. but for me, aviation safety was a gateway to understanding much more about aviation, and how hard *many* people work to keep it safe.
@alan if you want to get an idea of the worst he might see, click reports with the red 'C'. it's not bad, all told, but you can decide what's age appropriate.
the cool thing about aviation accident reports is the *immense* effort taken to understand root causes, and the immense detail given in describing the process. you end up learning a ton of av stuff just the reports.
(also, he'll be required to read & understand particularly illustrative accidents during training)
@alan there are also TONS of great videos on youtube.
of cool old airliners:
* https://youtu.be/4J5pN2Vsqgs
* https://youtu.be/7Vw2yaVYCCg
of aging hot-rod airliners:
* https://youtu.be/7MCz8RQDDgA
* https://youtu.be/qFAgP_QAu-g
and some more in-depth flying
* https://youtu.be/LbcRfLRCLkg
* https://youtu.be/2gnSWCfPF3k
lots more where that came from if you seed the recommendation algo!
@koherecoWatchdog Thanks for those insights. He’s definitively in it for the experience rather than the money!
I’ve tried to explain to him that it’s not all a bed of roses, but of course stuff online always shows the good stuff 😬
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