Fingerspitzengefühl is a German word. (As if you hadn’t already guessed!) It literally means “finger tips feeling”. As such it applies directly to holding the stick or yoke. The student pilot ‘death grip’ is really not helpful. You can’t make smooth gentle control inputs if you’re holding on too tight. And you can’t feel the aircraft talking to you. One …
Tag: situational awareness
Let Your Mind Wander in Simplicity
Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness. (circa 300 BC) Keep your situational awareness high, trim the plane. (2017)
Lost SA?
What to do when you lose situational awareness. (And we’ve all been there!) Adapted from BAE Systems paper Airmanship Training For Modern Aircrew, presented at the RTO HFM Symposium on ‘Advanced Technologies for Military Training’, held Genoa, Italy 13 – 15 October 2003, and published in RTO-MP-HFM-101.
Somber Reading About F/A-18C Accident
“An overreliance on technology can be a disadvantage.” Official report of a USN F/A-18C fatal accident that also talked about ‘situational awareness’. Good weather. Good plane. Good pilot. Always risky aircraft carrier operations. All this and more in a somber New York Times article