safety

Chris Hadfield on fear

By Dave English

“A lot of people live in fear because they haven’t figured out how you’re going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances. I’ve come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful—what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck—and then figuring out what I can do about it. Even if the fear-inducing event doesn’t happen, you feel much more at peace because you know you have a plan. It’s a learned behaviour, but I think it’s an effective one. Don’t ostrich it. Then, when you … Continue reading Chris Hadfield on fear

Listen to your plane.

By Dave English

Former NASA chief astronaut and USAF test pilot Charlie Precourt has a good article in the July edition of EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine. It’s on the normalization of deviance. That’s something we learnt about from studying the Space Shuttle accidents. And something we can apply every time we go flying. Listen to your plane. Don’t let standards slip. Don’t normalize deviance. (Picture is damaged TPS tiles on the Space Shuttle Endeavor, NASA S118-E-06229)

Death before embarrassment

By Dave English

One of the best books written by a test pilot/astronaut is Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Mike Collins. He was a USAF test pilot, spacewalked on Gemini 10 and went to the Moon on the historic Apollo 11 mission. Here he talks about an interesting airmanship trap — Death by Embarrassment:   It’s hard to admit a slip or mistake or error. But don’t let that kill you.  

Paul May on good pilots

By Dave English

Paul Day had a long career with the RAF, flying Tornados and spending 20 years in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, eight of those as commander. After retirement he continued to fly private Spitfires. This quote is from the book ‘Supermarine Spitfire Owners’ Workshop Manual’ (Haynes 2007).