There’s some excellent airmanship advice in an article about the U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska (The Red Bulletin, Sept 2016). It’s from helicopter pilot Lt. John Hess (in the picture), who has been awarded the Captain Frank Ericsson Award, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and saved a bunch of lives by flying many extreme rescues. He was asked, how does your crew prepare …
Elliot Seguin on the Perpetual Pursuit
Elliot Sequin is an experimental test pilot working for Mooney Aircraft, the founder and pilot of Wasabi Air Racing, and learnt his craft at Scaled Composites at the Mojave Air & Space Port, Mojave, California. He shares his considerable passion of flying in this cool video.
Misty Copeland on the Perpetual Pursuit
Misty Copeland is a ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre. Last year she became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer at a major American ballet company. She knows something about the perpetual pursuit: The full quote, from an interview in Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, 4 August 2016: “There’s no taking days off. We’re as good as our last performance, and you’re constantly working to …
Your Only Competition
The most insightful part of this super cool article (and video) is at the end: “Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.” Jason Stephens, owner of Arizona Soaring Five-time national US glider aerobatics champion, who is described here as the “most accomplished American competition aerobatic glider pilot of his generation.” Quote in AOPA Pilot magazine, Zen Masters, July 2016. “The …
Listen to Your Plane.
Former NASA chief astronaut and USAF test pilot Charlie Precourt has a good article in the July edition of EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine. It’s on the normalization of deviance. That’s something we learnt about from studying the Space Shuttle accidents. And something we can apply every time we go flying. Listen to your plane. Don’t let standards slip. Don’t normalize …
Still Amazed
I’ve watched Manfred Radius do aerobatics in his Salto sailplane, and it’s beautiful in a way very different from the fast jets or high-roll-rate biplanes. Always an inspiring show. Doesn’t surprise me that Manfred maintains his wonder of flight. Lose the wonder, the excitement, the enjoyment … and your performance will soon also start to sadly decline. (Original photo credit …
I Visualize a Lot
I visualize a lot. I visualize what the ready room looks like, the walk up, the race. The mind is a muscle that needs to be trained, and that’s something I’ve worked on as I’ve gotten older. I can be highly focused not for hours on end, but it takes tons of practice. Natalie Coughlin Twelve Olympic medals, three of …
Sudden Power Failure on Initial Climb
Total power loss at 300 ft. Eighteen year-old solo pilot glides back safely by flying the plan he’d verbally self-briefed. Very short, very cool video: Plan your flight. Fly your plan. Control your airspeed.
Death Before Embarrassment
One of the best books written by a test pilot/astronaut is Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Mike Collins. He was a USAF test pilot, spacewalked on Gemini 10 and went to the Moon on the historic Apollo 11 mission. Here he talks about an interesting airmanship trap — Death by Embarrassment: It’s hard to admit a slip or …
Paul May on Good Pilots
Paul Day had a long career with the RAF, flying Tornados and spending 20 years in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, eight of those as commander. After retirement he continued to fly private Spitfires. This quote is from the book ‘Supermarine Spitfire Owners’ Workshop Manual’ (Haynes 2007).