I may say that this is the greatest factor … the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it.
Victory awaits him who has everything in order—luck, people call it.
Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.
Roald Amundsen, first man to the South Pole, and first man to reach both Poles. In his 1912 book The South Pole.
safety
Murphy was deeper than you guessed
“It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later.” This was written by Alfred Holt in 1877, in an engineering report on using steam engines at sea. The phrase has become known as ‘Murphy’s Law’ for reasons unclear. But the original report is deeper and more insightful than I ever would have guessed. The same paragraph also says, “Sufficient stress can hardly be laid on the advantages of simplicity.” “The human factor cannot be safely neglected in planning machinery.” “It is almost as bad to have too many parts as too … Continue reading Murphy was deeper than you guessed
I know my personal limits
“I knew my personal limits. It was my pride to know my abilities and those of the airplanes I flew. Still, there was always a part of me that knew I could dart outside the limits for a bit and sneak back in quickly.” ~ Ryan Lunde This quote is from an excellent personal article well worth reading: Impact, online at BackCountryPilot.org
Automation addiction
In 2011, before the Asiana B777 crash, before the UPS A300 crash, industry experts were talking about automation addiction. It’s in an excellent AP news story, Automation in the air dulls pilot skill. Think they were onto something? How do you stay sharp?
New NTSB Safety Briefing
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.