You never know when it will happen. It could be your first solo. It could be after 42 years of flying. As Captain Gann titled a book: Fate is the Hunter. Best be ready. BA Captain Chris Henkey was. The press has praised his ‘split-second’ skills in aborting the takeoff on the runway. But I think the more praiseworthy airmanship …
Category: Article
Incredible Reply to Pride in Airmanship Question
On the Facebook page of Inner Art Airmanship, a reply to my last post about pride in airmanship was posted that deserves a wider audience. The original AOPA Flight Training magazine article ‘The Art of Airmanship’ closed with this thought: In the end, airmanship really is about pride-pride in learning as much as you can about the history and pioneers …
AOPA Article: The Art of Airmanship
This is an interesting article: The Art of Airmanship, by Christopher L. Parker, in AOPA’s Flight Training magazine, Aug 2006. A nice read, but I do have some comments. Like why oh why is the word Art at the start of the title but never mentioned in the article! The author states “Airmanship used to be about basic stick and rudder skills.” …
Learning from Seamanship Definitions
The preface to the book Seamanship by Peter Kemp starts with two definitions. One from the Oxford English Dictionary: The art or practice of managing a ship at sea. and one from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: The art of sailing, maneuvering, and preserving a ship or boat in all positions and under all reasonable conditions. Notice how they both start. Seamanship is an …
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 …
The Search for the Simplicity of a Single Line
When I first started thinking about the Inner Art of Airmanship, I was looking for the common connections between all kinds of flying. Sometimes we find deeper truths that connect more diverse activities. Like how how search for the simplicity of a single line links a seventieth century French painter, Zen brush art, the trajectory of space missions, Formula 1’s …
Full United Airlines Safety Memo to Pilots
Here’s the complete “brutally honest” safety memo sent to every United Airlines pilot this year. Lots of good points about airmanship, discipline and CRM: Date: January 9, 2015 SAFETY ALERT: Significant safety concerns Recent events in our operation have dictated that we communicate with all of you immediately. Over the past few weeks, our airline has experienced what we would …