“I am looking to see whether anything is out of order. There will be no time to look for what is missing or out of place when a storm comes up at sea.” ~ Phoenician seaman, circa 330 BC. The ‘secrets’ of airmanship haven’t really been secret for at least the last 2,500 years! (The unnamed seaman is quoted in …
Category: Airmanship Quotes
Work Without Love …
Work to put love and passion into your work, or else it all becomes just work. Mother Teresa said it better:
There is Ecstasy in Paying Attention
Button Pushing
“A musician must practice every day. A baseball player must practice every day. Heck, even a clown has to practice. So why do pilots get to push buttons on an autopilot and consider that flying? That is not flying.” ~ Rick Erikson, writing about automation dependency and proficiency in the June 2015 edition of Soaring magazine.
Dale Masters on Cockpit Automation
I fly bare bones routinely, relying on sight and sound and feel in favor of expensive, complex, and distracting gizmos. ~ Dale Masters, 12,000 hours in gliders, instructor at Southern California Soaring Academy, writing in the June 2015 Soaring magazine.
Harrison Ford Flying Again
Happy to see Harrison Ford is flying again. As a pilot he’s the real deal.
All Dangers are Over?
“He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.” ~ Thomas Fuller. He wrote this towards the end of the 1600’s. So we’ve known for a long time that ‘perfect safety’ or zero-accidents is kinda silly. There are always dangers in the deep and in the air.
Confusion over Basic Things?
“There is still a lot of confusion over what seems to be basic things. We haven’t done a very good job of training folks.” ~ Aerobatic instructor Bruce Williams, expressing what many experienced pilots secretly know. Interview in the June 2015 edition of AOPA Pilot magazine. Bruce in his Extra 300L
We are Responsible …
“We are responsible for the incident and its consequences.” ~ Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman on the fatal Philadelphia derailment. Whatever the engineer’s actions in speeding into the curve, it’s refreshingto see a CEO actually take responsibility for a crash. System Safety and Just Culture moving beyond the safety dept? (Guardian newspaper story 2 June 2015.)
Richard De Crespigny on Wearing a Glove
That’s how you fly a glider, a C172, or in his case, an A380. One with the wing.