Flying Attitude

03 Aug 2005 Flying Attitude

A great article from Doug Rozendaal:

–> RV-List message posted by: “Doug Rozendaal”

>> –> RV-List message posted by: linn walters
Snip

>>
>> with crosswinds. The plane was the same, but I wasn’t. Best of luck,
>> Linn
>>

Linn,

You are correct, you are not the same, you are better for the experience.

I too am a “member of the club” and, I hope, better for it. There is lots
of invincibility running around in the RV community. I had plenty of that
attitude. My accident adjusted my attitude. I am not saying my attitude
problem is cured, it never is, keeping attitude in check is a continuous
battle when flying airplanes. It is especially difficult flying airplanes
with performance like RV’s or, worse, some of the cool airplanes that I fly.
The RV flies so well and so easy that we start to believe that we are really
good. That is B.S.

Get this part here. Pilot skill is seldom the problem. Most airplanes
crash because of attitude. Our attitude takes us to a place that our
airplane can’t get us out of, and then there is a crash.

You don’t believe that? Let me list some of my dead friends. Charlie
Hillard, French Connection, Sonny Lovelace and Randy Drake (Red Barons)
Jimmy Franklin, Bobby Younkin, Ian Groom, shall I continue? Does anyone
think these guys were short on skill?

Questioning our decision making is a good thing in aviation. This fighter
pilot ego crap that we must mentally dominate my enemy by believing that we
are the best in the world and no one can beat us is a great thing for
defending the freedom of our country.

We are trying to travel, have fun and live to fly another day. We need to
use a Cockpit Resource Management model that goes like this:
1. acknowledge that we make errors.
2. trap the errors before they become problems.
3. mitigate the damage from the errors that get past step 2.

Many people crash and do not change their attitudes. They can’t even get to
step 1. They won’t admit that they make mistakes and change their behavior.
They keep crashing until they are eliminated from the gene pool. The
insurance companies will tell you that anyone who has crashed once is far
more likely to crash again.

I crashed my airplane because my ego was out of control and none of my
friends took me aside to square me up. Shattering your kneecap squares you
up. It changed my approach to flying. I still make mistakes, lots of them.
I still wrestle to control my “fighter pilot” attitude. I try to accept
counsel from my peers and offer it when I think their attitudes are getting
dangerous.

If we don’t counsel our peers when they get out of hand, then we have blood
on our hands when they get hurt.

Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal