“Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying. Pilots generally take pride in a good landing, not in getting out of the vehicle.” Neil Armstrong
Tag: landing
Expert Pilot Brains Work Less
Research finds expert pilots make better flying decisions—not a surprise. Expert pilots brains work less than average pilot brains—that is super cool! The paper Higher Landing Accuracy in Expert Pilots is Associated with Lower Activity in the Caudate Nucleus published in the journal PLOS One found that: High Expertise pilots showed lower activation in the bilateral caudate nucleus (0.97±0.80) compared to Moderate …
Zero/Zero, Charles D. Svovoda
“At last I understood what true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn’t all seat-of-the-pants flying and glory. It’s self-discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It’s precision. If you can’t keep the gauges where you want them with everything free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong?” Charles D. Svoboda Flying magazine, November 1976. Old editions …
Happy Dog
There’s lots of reasons I tell myself why I like being a pilot. But it might just be the joy of a dog in a car, sticking his head out the window. Oh, and if you’re not fully focused on only landing when landing — you’re doing it wrong!
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.
It Remains a Puzzle
How to land? Last night, in the dark of 16L, everything looked perfect. I gently bought the A320 into a nice flare, and was rewarded with an OK, but harder than I wanted, landing. It was safe. Many would say it was good. But I was disgruntled. I can do better. Often the final touch-down remains a puzzle to me. …
The Secrets of the Wave Pilots
There is a wonderful long-read article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine titled The Secrets of the Wave Pilots. It never mentions flying or airmanship, but it’s thought-provoking contemplative stuff for any aviator concerned about visual flying skills. And it’s an in-depth romp through animal navigation, GPS, modern brain science and almost lost ancient knowledge. The glue of the story …
Ball Flying and Baseball
This was sent to me by an Art of Airmanship reader, who is an active USN F/A-18 pilot. It was written sometime in the 90’s, and is credited to Lieutenant Commander James Winnefeld, Jr. He was a US Navy pilot, a real TOPGUN instructor, and worked on the movie Top Gun. He is currently an Admiral, serving as Vice Chairman of the …
I Know My Personal Limits
“I knew my personal limits. It was my pride to know my abilities and those of the airplanes I flew. Still, there was always a part of me that knew I could dart outside the limits for a bit and sneak back in quickly.” ~ Ryan Lunde This quote is from an excellent personal article well worth reading: Impact, online …
Kathy McCullough on Mistakes
“Don’t concentrate on your mistakes. Just move on, let it go, and put the bad landings behind you.” ~ Kathy McCullough, retired 747 Captain, talking on the Inspired Pilot Podcast.