Expert pilot brains work less

Research finds expert pilots make better flying decisions—not a surprise. Expert pilots brains work less than average pilot brains—that is super cool! The paper Higher Landing Accuracy in Expert Pilots is Associated with Lower Activity in the Caudate Nucleus published in the journal PLOS One found that: High Expertise pilots showed lower activation in the bilateral caudate nucleus (0.97±0.80) compared to Moderate Expertise pilots (1.91±1.16) (p<.05). These findings provide evidence for increased “neural efficiency” in High Expertise pilots relative to Moderate Expertise pilots. So work hard to be an expert pilot, so you can fly better, and work less! Quotes and illustrations … Continue reading Expert pilot brains work less

Zero/Zero, Charles D. Svovoda

“At last I understood what true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn’t all seat-of-the-pants flying and glory. It’s self-discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It’s precision. If you can’t keep the gauges where you want them with everything free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong?” Charles D. Svoboda Flying magazine, November 1976. Old editions of Flying magazine are archived by Google books. This amazing article is online for free in the November 1976 edition, and certainly deserves a new audience. It’s about making a foggy zero/zero landing in a huge prop plane. Lots of good … Continue reading Zero/Zero, Charles D. Svovoda