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7 Read the text. Answer the questions.
1 How many airline pilots in Britain are men?
2 Was the author a nurse before she became
a pilot?
3 How many hours do you fly when you are
training to fly passenger planes?
4 Why is it difficult to fly over Europe?
5 What is it important for pilots to do when there
is a problem?
6 Who flies the plane, the captain or the first
officer?
7 Why do passenger planes have two pilots?

8 Read the text again. Choose the correct answers:

a, b or c.
1 The writer of the article is a The best job in the world
a  man.   b  woman.   c  child. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them my
2 Passengers visit the pilots on a flight job. That is because I say, ‘I am a pilot’. What is so
nowadays. surprising about that? Well, I am female and, in Britain,
only 300 of the 13,000 airline pilots are women.
a  never   b  sometimes   c  often
3 Training to be a pilot is When I was younger, I wanted to be a nurse. I changed
a  less than a year.   b  one year. my mind after flying in a plane for the first time when
I was thirteen. My brother and I went to see the pilots
c  more than one year.
in the cockpit during the flight – you can’t do that
4 Qualified pilots are checked nowadays. It was an amazing experience. I remember
a  regularly.   b  occasionally.   c  every six years. thinking, ‘This is much more exciting than being a nurse!’
5 The airspace over Europe is
It takes several years to become a pilot. First, you
a  exciting.   b  quiet.   c  busy. get a Commercial Pilot’s Licence and take a complete
6 The captain sits the first officer. medical examination. It’s so important for you to be fit
a  in front of   b  on the left of   c  behind and healthy in this job. Then, to fly passenger planes,
you fly 1,500 hours as a trainee pilot and pass a written
9 In pairs, compare these jobs. exam. Also, when you are qualified, instructors check
your flying skills every six months.
•  a teacher  •  a nurse  •  an actor
At the moment, I am working on short flights between
Talk about: Manchester and European destinations like Barcelona,
• the training Nice and Milan. Some people say that this is not as
• the responsibility hard as flying long distances to America or Asia, but I
• the pay disagree. The sky above Europe is the busiest airspace
• the good things about the job in the world. It can make flying difficult, especially
when the weather is bad.
• the bad things about the job
Being a pilot is an incredibly responsible job. The lives
10 Write a paragraph about a job you would like to of hundreds of people are in your hands. It’s essential
do. Write about: for pilots to be prepared for anything to happen at any
time. It is very important to think quickly and stay calm
• why you want to do this job under pressure.
• the best thing about it
As a first officer, I always work with another pilot, a
• the worst thing about it captain. The captain sits on the left-hand side and the
• how it compares to a different job first officer on the right. We share the job of flying the
plane on each journey. It’s safer to have two pilots in
case one of us becomes ill and is unable to fly.
I know there are easier jobs, but there’s nothing as
exciting as flying a plane!

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