Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness. (circa 300 BC) Keep your situational awareness high, trim the plane. (2017)
Tag: Zen
Changing Not the World
This is what great pilots share with artists, and monks and mystics. The heightened perception, the fascination with flight, eventually turns into an aeronautical superpower. The great pilot sees things and corrects before the average pilot ever knows anything is amiss. The desire of monks and mystics is not unlike that of artists: to perceive the extraordinary within the ordinary …
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!
Happy Sunday!
See you in the sky . . .
Meditating Military Helicopter Pilots
A peer-reviewed scientific study published this year shows the positive impact of meditation on personnel in two Norwegian Air Force helicopter squadrons. This was not new-age wishful thinking, or sloppy science self-reporting that some people felt good. No, this was university and Air Force doctors and scientists taking chemical measurements of salivary cortisol, testing performance on computer-based cognitive tasks, and comparing the …
Checklist Complete! Or is It?
This airline training slide explains ‘active monitoring’ – visualize, act, compare. You must look for something, not just at something: It’s easy to say we should be mentally flying the aeroplane, but it’s also kind of a cop out. So it’s a nice addition to have some concrete ideas on how to actually do it.
Time is a River
Pilots work with time. On-time. Speed = distance/time. We must manage our own inner time as well. From slow times to supersonic.
Don’t Let Your Emotions …
Never get emotionally worked up in the cockpit — you’ll only die mad. Best be like the WWII British poster, keep calm and carry on:
In the Wholeheartedness of Concentration
Concentration, time, work, art. Lots of time and lots of work. But it’s worth it. You will experience what others never see, never know. (quote from her 1997 essay collection Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry)
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 …