Growing up as a pilot

By Dave English

Flying magazine has a great article in the current (June) issue by John Zimmerman, ‘Growing up as a pilot: Transitioning from fear to mastery’. The last paragraph is:

“Done properly, the relentless pursuit of flying mastery can transform aviation from a hobby into a life-changing commitment. Understanding how your mind works, confronting risk and pushing yourself to learn new skills aren’t easy, but neither is growing up nor raising kids. Major life events — and flying definitely qualifies — often force you to confront who you really are, understand your fears and conquer your weaknesses.”

Old pilot

I want to grow up as a pilot!

John is Vice President of Sporty’s Pilot Shop’s Catalog Division, and has written for Air Facts online. This Flying article isn’t online, so it might be worth heading to a store to pick up the magazine.

“You’re never done growing as a pilot. It’s a journey.”

 

Test pilot airmanship

By Dave English

I finally got around to reading a book that’s been sitting in one of the towering piles on my desk for, maybe months? years? A View From The Hover: My Life in Aviation by British test pilot John Farley. I should have read it sooner.

It’s great. An engaging tour of a top test pilot’s professional life, with hard-won flying insights sprinkled in.

“Flying is an exercise in risk management.”

There are way too many pilot autobiographies that drudge through personal life, lists of planes flown, favorite sandwiches, and generally are not worth reading. This is not the case here. John, a clear concise writer, leads us through interesting flights of experimental British aircraft, with a strong emphasis on vertical takeoff/landing and the full life span of the Harrier ‘Jump Jet’. He includes some aerodynamics and general aviation flying chapters, all from a practical test pilot perspective that I found especially illuminating. Real insights on fundamentals like lift/drag and pitch/power.

view hover

“Trying to enhance a reputation by showing off outside your capabilities   (and those of your aircraft) is a pretty well trodden path to hurting yourself.”

Five-year student engineering apprenticeship at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough, RAF pilot training and fighter squadron experience, RAF instructor, Empire Test Pilot school, and then the real business of test flying super cool airplanes. He is smart and has a first-rate aeronautical CV. But he is human, sharing good choices and bad, and doesn’t consider himself some kind of flying God.

“My first flying lesson was in an RAF piston Provost in December 1955 and my most recent was my last working flight because you can learn something about flying and yourself every time you get airborne. In between those two lessons there were a lot of flights, a lot of types and some fifty years.”

The book is well over 400 pages, so it’s quite detailed covering many unique aviation exploits. I learnt something about flying from most every page. It is all very British of course, and that’s part of its appeal.

“Ignorance seldom results in bliss when it comes to aeroplanes.”

Indeed. This book was fun to read, and helped erase some more of my ignorance.

Ski jump

(All quotes from A View From the Hover: My Life in Aviation by John Farley, 2nd Edition, 2010, Flyer Books, Bath UK.)

JFarley2

It’s no accident — it’s a crash

By Dave English

Interesting article yesterday in the New York Times, titled ‘It’s no accident: Advocates want to speak of car ‘crashes’ instead’. It’s about safety advocates changing language use from a car accident to a car crash. The AP recently revised their style guide. Dr Rosekind of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is on board, saying,

“When you use the word accident, it’s like, ‘God made it happen.’”

The thinking is that ‘accident’ may make us shrug our shoulders and think, oh well, what can you do, accidents happen. ‘Accident’ may trivialize that most common cause of traffic incidents: human error. Which in turn is influenced by bad design, pressures, expectancies, complexities, on and on. The ‘perfect storm’ or ‘normal accident’.

NTSBAsiana214

Of course, in todays litigious society, it may seem like we are really just looking for someone to blame, someone to sue. I found it fascinating that Dr Peter Norton, a historian and associate professor of engineering, says that companies started using the word ‘accident’ in the early 1900s to protect themselves from the costs of caring for workers injured on the job:

“Relentless safety campaigns started calling these events ‘accidents,’ which excused the employer of responsibility.”

And that in the 1920s auto-industry interests borrowed the word to shift focus away from the cars themselves. Dr Norton again:

“Automakers were very interested in blaming reckless drivers.”

This makes me want to join the It’s a crash. Not an accident movement. As they say:

Before the labor movement, factory owners would say “it was an accident” when American workers were injured in unsafe conditions.

Before the movement to combat drunk driving, intoxicated drivers would say “it was an accident” when they crashed their cars.

Planes don’t have accidents. They crash. Cranes don’t have accidents. They collapse. And as a society, we expect answers and solutions.

Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word “accident” today.

www.CrashNotAccident.com

What do you think? Should we stop reflexively calling plane crashes ‘accidents’?

Travis Fimmel on passion. And work.

By Dave English

“There’s always that thing where you see people complain about their career and you know they haven’t worked hard enough. ‘Oh, we don’t get the opportunities,’ they tell me.

I went to class with you. You didn’t stay there the whole time, you didn’t go watch extra classes. I grew up working hard and never wanted to blame anybody if I couldn’t make it work. I work hard with pride and I want to be good at whatever I do.

My passion is kind of a pride-passion. I’ll outwork anyone. For me, you have to be really good to be proud of yourself. I’m honest with myself. I don’t settle. Same with anything, I work harder. I see what I want to be, and I won’t be happy until I get there.”

Travis Fimmel, actor, pilot.
Red Bulletin magazine, June 2016.

Travis Fimmel

The whole article is online. He’s soloed a Cessna, and would like to learn to fly helicopters.