It’s always a balance

By Dave English

It’s always a balance — you have to make money; you have to stay on schedule; moving people is your goal. But you have to get them there safely.

Captain Sheryl Clarke
Director of safety, security and compliance, ExpressJet Airlines.

While there are some concerns with SMS, it’s nice to see a senior airline SMS manager publicly (in Flying magazine online) acknowledge that safety is not number one. Moving people is the goal. Safety is risk management. Safety is a balance.

 sms-idealistic-needs

“Safety is our number one value” and other trite soundbites initially sound good, until you try to apply that in practice. Moving metal is how aviation makes money, it’s our reason for existence (outside of purely recreational fun flying). Managing risk is how we do it without killing people. It’s tricky. It’s fluid. It’s complex. It’s subjective. It has multiple levels.

safety

You might even say it’s an art.

Fly like an Eagle

By Dave English

I just re-watched the excellent rockumentary History of the Eagles (2013), over four hours on the band that made the biggest-selling album of the twentieth century. The movie has several revealing interviews with members of the legendary band. Contemporary thoughts from the early 70’s, and reflections after 40 years:

“Perfection is not an accident.”

Glenn Frey

“Our goal was just to be the best we could be. We wanted to get better as songwriters and as performers. And we worked on it.”

Don Henley

early eagles

“Your whole mandate is just to improve. Life is about improvement.”

Glenn Frey

“It wasn’t a hobby for us. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a pleasant diversion. It was a life. It was a calling. It was a career.”

Don Henley

Old eagles

Fry and Henley started playing together as members of Linda Rondstadt’s touring house band. She also had something insightful to say about practice and hard-work:

“Nothing gets your chops like playing every single night.”

Linda Rondstadt

All in all, I want to fly like an Eagle …

It remains a puzzle

By Dave English

How to land? Last night, in the dark of 16L, everything looked perfect. I gently bought the A320 into a nice flare, and was rewarded with an OK, but harder than I wanted, landing. It was safe. Many would say it was good. But I was disgruntled. I can do better. Often the final touch-down remains a puzzle to me.

Today I watched some early 1970’s US TV. Strongly influenced by Bruce Lee, the show Kung Fu featured a fictional monk trained at the Shaolin Temple in China who wandered around the American Wild West kicking bad guy butt.

This short YouTube clip is instructive:

kungfu
Caine: “I think of nothing but to be one with the target.

Cowboy: “You think I’m gonna believe that? How can you see what you’re shooting at in the dark?

Caine: “Watch my eyes.

[Caine hits the target with his eyes closed]

Cowboy: “How’d you do that?!

Caine: “I do not do it. It is not done.

Cowboy: “What do you mean ‘It’s not done’?

Caine: “It is only experienced. It happens.

Cowboy: “It happens?

Caine: “The pole, the arrow, the bow are all one. Not many things. Not different things. One.

Cowboy: “Well I see it, but I sure don’t understand it.

Caine: “Good.

Cowboy: “Why is it good?

Caine: “It remains a puzzle. When you cease to strive to understand, then you will know without understanding.

 

How to say no

By Dave English

Saying YES is easy, saying NO is hard. Outstanding article by James Albright in Business & Commercial Aviation on not pleasing the boss.

There is an old saying among business aviation pilots: “You don’t pay me to say ‘Yes,’ you pay me to say ‘No.’” Saying “Yes” is easy; it is what the passengers want to hear. It takes real courage to look at the person who controls your fate and say “No.”

Five case studies and then some useful ideas. When the boss is pushing, it explains tools we can use to push back:
 
  • Transfer ownership.
  • Delay and redirect.
  • Prioritize.
  • Play the safety card.

Say NO

(Learning how to say ‘No’, May 26, 2016, James Albright, Business & Commercial Aviation.)

Make the sky your canvas

By Dave English

graham hill

Graham Hill is the only driver ever to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport—the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix. Wow! He was the Formula One World Champion twice, with a total of 14 Grand Prix wins. And in his spare time, he liked to paint. Which makes this quote even more meaningful.

“I am an artist. The track is my canvas, and the car is the brush.”

We should aim to fly like Graham Hill drove. Make the sky our canvas.

 

(Picture is Graham in a Lotus 49, during the 1968 South African Grand Prix.)