“The control of fear is a necessary part of the inner work of flight.” William Langewiesche Breathe. Relax. Do the ‘what-if’ work ahead of time. All these are part of the Inner Work of Flight. Quote is from Langewiesche’s 2010 book Aloft: Thoughts on the Experience of Flight. And yes, his Dad wrote Stick and Rudder.
“Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.” Reinhold Messner, All Fourteen 8,000ers, 1999. Wikipedia says this about Messner: He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen. He was the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, doing so without supplementary oxygen. Messner was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds and also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. He is widely considered as the greatest mountaineer of all time.
“Your new job is to say ‘no,’ when everyone else says ‘go’.” Happy New Year! Here’s to resolutions of flying more, flying better. This is from new Delta captain Jeremy King, his first trip as pilot-in-command of an airliner: https://wordsaloft.substack.com/p/managing-delays-gaining-time-without
OK, this might be a bit of a ‘one weird trick nobody knows’ clickbait avgeek troll headline — but this is a real paper on real research in a real journal. It’s in Safety Science, titled ‘An analysis of a pilot’s adherence to their personal weather minimums’, written by Professor Scott Winter et al.. Full citation at the end of the post. They studied certificated instrument pilots (who were also ERAU students) and how they adhered to both personal and FAA minimums while flying an ILS approach. The results were quite astonishing: “The findings demonstrated 96.4% of participants descended below their … Continue reading 81% of ERAU pilots bust IFR minimums
In 2013 FAA Safety Briefing magazine published a seemingly unremarkable story about a mindless runway incursion in a light piston twin. Human error. Could have been bad, but like most incidents, no big deal. What’s interesting is the author. He was a master pilot. The byline is Gene Cernan, fighter pilot, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, Moonwalker, and general aviation pilot. And I just heard the real story on how he got to write his confessional article. Listening to the Flight Safety Detectives podcast #56 the hosts, former NTSB investigators John Goglia and Greg Feith talk with former JetBlue safety … Continue reading It can happen to you
