risk

Just this once?

By Dave English

“Just this once” is a dangerous phrase to think or say to yourself. Often it serves as an excuse to do something you know you shouldn’t.  ~ Carl Richards, author of The One-Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way to Be Smart About Your Money. Insights into our behavior with money often translate well into airmanship ideas.

Sleep and air crew fatigue management.

By Dave English

“As long as human beings are pilots . . . fatigue will be a critical safety issue that demands our attention.” Sleep and Air Crew Fatigue Management, excellent serious article in Business & commercial Aviation magazine. Airmanship demands alertness. Quotes Sully Sullenberger, the NTSB’s Mark Rosekind, and many more.

Somber reading about F/A-18C accident

By Dave English

“An overreliance on technology can be a disadvantage.” Official report of a USN F/A-18C fatal accident that also talked about ‘situational awareness’. Good weather. Good plane. Good pilot. Always risky aircraft carrier operations. All this and more in a somber New York Times article

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Managing risk and anticipating challenges

“The appeal of a physically perilous sport … isn’t the inherent danger of it. It’s about the process of managing risk and anticipating challenges. You need to figure out how to prepare and control everything you can, and then you need to be ready for the things you can’t control.”

Ashley Merryman, co-author of ‘Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing’, writing in this month’s Red Bull Bulletin.

Illusion of airline safety systems

By Dave English

This is a link to an excellent article, Illusions of Safety, published yesterday by the Royal Aeronautical Society. It’s written by Dr Rob Hunter, Head of Flight Safety, British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). While it is most directly aimed at the safety professionals that regulate and manage airline safety departments, it has interesting reverberations into any personal risk management discussion. Is safety number one? The whole piece is well worth reading, if only to learn about the origin of the phrase ‘you’ve got to draw the line somewhere‘. Some powerful lines include: Some pilots say that they are fearful of reporting … Continue reading Illusion of airline safety systems