If you've never piloted an aircraft, you might be surprised to hear that most of the hours pilots spend in the cockpit are predictable, uneventful, and routine. In fact, it is easy for pilots to become complacent in this environment, as familiarity breeds complacency. You've no doubt experienced this while driving. If you regularly drive …
"Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success." ~ Dale Carnegie Swiss pilot Yves Rossy is making history as the first person to achieve sustained human flight using a jet-powered wing strapped to his back. While his accomplishments to date are impressive, three points in …
"Prepare for the unknown, unexpected and inconceivable . . . after 50 years of flying I'm still learning every time I fly." ~ Gene Cernan I've learned a great many lessons as an aviator over the years, all of which have left me a better pilot. What I didn't expect, however, is that those experiences …
The modern jets we fly on today are born of an accumulation of successes and failures over the decades. Aircraft designers constantly dream up new design elements in an effort to improve the safety, efficiency and handling characteristics of the aircraft we fly commercially, privately and in the military and some of them work while …
"Here is a country lovely and unspoiled. Here is a simple and satisfying restfulness...a place to charm the mind while nature mends nerves worn thin by living too fast and too hard. Here, in short, is peace, and play, and freedom." ~ Howard Coffin If you've ever had the good fortune to visit Sea Island …
Imagine yourself in the seat of an Air Traffic Controller, sitting in a darkened room somewhere staring at screens with moving targets and talking with the pilots of those moving targets as they whisk along miles high in an aircraft that is likely moving at several hundred miles per hour. The pilot of a jet …
Continue reading Teamwork: Asking Questions and Keeping your Cool
In a previous post entitled The Honest Skeptic and the Alternate Plan, we considered the importance of honest skepticism in the living of life. The honest skeptic, as opposed to the lesser skeptic, or worse, the "yes man," recognizes the need to question when things don't appear right. In the world of aviation, pilots, air …
"There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror." ~ Orson Wells Several years ago my uncle and I flew up to Boston to pick up our new company airplane and fly it back to Georgia following the installation of an anti-icing system. The first third of the trip was uneventful, we flew …
Well, the Great Recession is now over, there is a plague of locusts in Australia and a Piper Saratoga made an emergency landing on the freeway just down the road from me in Atlanta after an engine failure. What a day! Whether the world is moving at an accelerating pace or the increased flow of …
We've all done it at one point or another. We were moving happily and uneventfully along in some process or another and then we accidentally skip a step. We may not realize it right away, but eventually the omission comes to light. With a little luck, the mistake doesn't cost us much in the way …
Gregory Hake 