Living the dream
From the first hour of flight training, realize that you are already ‘living the dream!’ Eric Auxier. Airline captain and writer.
Airmanship Quotes
Mikaela Shiffrin on winning formula
“I still don’t think there is a winning formula. It’s really just working your butt off.” Mikaela Shiffrin She is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history. She is also the current world champion in slalom. There is no magic formula for success. The winning formula involves hard work. And sounds a lot like the seven P’s: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Piloting Performance! Both quotes from great article in this month’s The Red Bulletin.
You’re not in a dangerous situation until
Scott Crossfield — fighter pilot, aeronautical engineer, first person to fly twice the speed of sound and X-15 chief engineering test pilot — quoted in the classic book X-15 Diary released this week. He is also quoted as saying: In all of this business there’s a requirement of intense concentration—if you can train yourself to be self-disciplined. If you close the car door on your finger, your impulse is to put it in your mouth and curse. But you train yourself too wait. It’s part of the profession—to avoid an emotion or a reflex reaction. Clearly a safety warrior at work.
Fighting complacency
Fighting complacency is not as exciting as fighting fires, but it’s a battle we will join many more times. We train for engine failures, electrical loss, and lots more. And we should practice multiple worst case failures. But we must also learn to handle ourselves on all those flights when nothing is going on. (Quote is from Coelho’s 2008 novel The Winner Stands Alone.)
Being a good stick is not enough
Being a “good stick” is not enough. Good pilots are thinking their way through the air as well as simply moving controls. What comes next in flight is absolutely as important as what is happening right now. Jack J. Pelton EAA CEO, Sport Aviation magazine, Nov 2016 “Being ahead of the plane” they call it. And if you can always answer the question, “what are the next two things,” then you are really mentally ahead—pilot not passenger.