awareness

New NTSB Safety Briefing

By Dave English

The NTSB recently released a Safety Briefing applicable to all pilots. It details several recent mid-air collisions that maybe could have be avoided if the pilots had seen the other aircraft coming. All were in good day VFR conditions. There’s no indication that these pilots were looking at iPads at the time, but I think we all know how captivating PEDs can be in a ‘nothing happening’ quiet cockpit. And a recent accident was blamed on the pilot taking selfies in flight. See and be seen is an ancient seamanship skill. We must not lose it now.

Dale Masters on cockpit automation

By Dave English

I fly bare bones routinely, relying on sight and sound and feel in favor of expensive, complex, and distracting gizmos. ~ Dale Masters, 12,000 hours in gliders, instructor at Southern California Soaring Academy, writing in the June 2015 Soaring magazine.

New research on meditating F-16 fighter pilots

By Dave English

New peer-reviewed scientific research suggests mindfulness mental training helps F-16 fighter pilots. It’s in the latest edition of the International Journal of Aviation Psychology, and describes a long-term (2-year) study using Norwegian F-16 pilots. These high-performance combat-rated pilots show a increase in self-perceived skills associated with mindfulness, attention regulation and arousal regulation following a regime of mindfulness training. Alone it’s not the greatest study, due to self-reporting qualitative measures and lack of a control group, but in talking to the lead author I’ve learned much more is coming. Anders Meland is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Aviation Medicine and … Continue reading New research on meditating F-16 fighter pilots