Life Lessons From Cockpit

After a rather long absence, I am back writing my blog again about life lessons from cockpit, thanks to Muhammad Nazri who is currently undergoing his flying training. Nazri posed the following questions and rather than answering directly to him, I thought of posting the answers in the blog so that the others could read them as well. The following are his questions:

a) What does it take to be a great pilot and what attitude should a pilot possess?

b) What kind of habit that a pilot has to instill in ourselves so that it will become a

routine and discipline that can make us to be a better pilot?

c) Compared to yourself in the old days and young pilot nowadays, do you notice if

there is any gap or lack in skill, knowledge and discipline in fresh pilots and if

there is any ,can you describe why and how to encounter it?

Q a) What does it take to be a great pilot and what attitude should a pilot possess?

The above are powerful questions and very subjective. If I were to ask different pilots I would probably get different answers. One can solicit views from different people, and the answer would again be different. A passenger’s view of a good or great pilot would be different from the ground staff’s view, another different view from someone who works closely with pilots compared to someone who is not directly involved with pilots. I guess that it is in everyone’s mind that a good pilot is someone who is cool, calm, collected and confident under pressure and they are absolutely right with the above views.

I too agree with the above view plus a few more of my own perceptions that are based on my own experience after being in the profession for over 30 years as a management pilot, instructor, trainer and line pilot. The following are my views:

1) State of mind. If one were to ask me the difference between a great pilot and an average one, I would dare to say that it is in his “state of mind.” The first thing a great pilot must have is a good, positive mental attitude. He must be disciplined, confident, relax and focus in what he is doing. There is no substitute for a strong discipline. When he is flying, he is on his own and if he is in command of the airplane, there is no one to tell him what to do or what not to do. He therefore has to be disciplined and follow a set of rules, which is the “standard operating procedures.” Discipline will also make him knowledgeable, meticulous in his work and has the attitude to continuously learn from his experiences.

2) Beliefs. Next is in his beliefs. It is basically a guiding principle, what pilots think to be true; his feeling about what is certainty in life. It is assumptions he has about himself, other people, his work, and the world. His beliefs could be limiting or they could be empowering to him. In flying we are faced with challenges all the time, perhaps much more compared to someone working on the ground. If we believe that we cannot do something, chances that we will behave in such a way that will cause us to fail, by not trying hard enough (give up), or by doing things to sabotage himself in some way. It is therefore necessary to have beliefs that will empower him to carry out his tasks well, and for him to be able to overcome all obstacles that he is faced with.

3) Skills. A great pilot has to be skillful. This is his bread and butter. He should be able to fly the aircraft well. By flying the aircraft well I mean with great accuracy and precision. He should not settle for a mediocre performance. He should strive for perfection and this takes a lot of hard work, practice and discipline.

The above to me are qualities of a great pilot. The following diagram will illustrate these qualities.

From the above diagram which one is more important of the three? Well to me all are important and necessary. However before one could acquire the skills, one has to have the right mental state and empowering beliefs. With these two qualities acquiring the necessary skills becomes easier. By having the above qualities he will also become more confident of himself. However he has to always remind himself and be careful of the tendency of becoming over-confidence. I have seen people who become so over confident of himself to the point of being obnoxious in his behaviour. To prevent this from happening, another quality that a great pilot must have is “humility.” This comes from knowing oneself, your strengths and weaknesses and respect for others, be they your working colleagues or any man on the street.

If you are a great pilot and you know about it and you are humble about it, you can walk tall and gain respect from your working colleagues and whoever that you are dealing with. You will truly enjoy this profession and will be forever remembered.

Tags: Cockpit, Life Lessons from Cockpit, Pilots

Each day when we go through life we will encounter events. Some of them could be new to us whereas some others could be the same events that we routinely faced before. These events could be problems, hardships or pleasant encounters. At the end of the day we go back to our home, take our well deserved rest and wake up the next morning to face another day. We will do this day in and day out, years after years going through life’s experiences. But, do we learn anything from these experiences? And how many of us will take the trouble to reflect on the day’s experiences that we went through and make an attempt to learn something from them? If only we were to discipline ourselves and learn from all of our experiences we will definitely develop to be a better person than what we are now.

The following is my four step process that I use to learn from my experience in flying that we can also use to learn from our daily life experiences:

Step 1 – The Experience

At the end of each flight I make it a point to mentally replay the flight, from take-off to landing, taking note of areas or sections of the flight that I did well and those that I was not happy with. After that I will pick and choose a particular area that I feel I could have done better and this will be the experience that I will use for the learning process. This step is merely to identify and prioritise which of the many experiences that I will use.

As an example on a particular flight from Kuala Lumpur to London Heathrow, I am not happy with the “descent” phase of the flight, resulting in being high on my descent profile, resulting in a rushed approach and I feel that I could have done it better. I will then use this phase of the flight and proceed to the next step.

Step 2 – Review

This step involves data collection. What I will do is to replay that particular phase of the flight in greater detail and collect as much information as possible such as the descent speed, the weather, the distance from the airport when the descent was initiated, the workload during this period, the number of aircrafts in the vicinity, any distraction from the cabin crew, the air traffic control and any relevant information that I could use for the next step.

Step 3 – Concluding

Based on the information gathered from step 2 and my previous experience, I could then conclude why I ended up high on the descent profile – the cause or causes.

Step 4 – Planning for next step

This last step is merely to come up with action plans, that is, the steps that I would use to ensure I will not end up in the same situation on my next flight to the same destination.

I have been using the above process and have been encouraged with the result. I am also using it during my training flights to help my trainees learn from their flying experience to further improve themselves.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: Cockpit, experience, hardships, life lessons, Pilots, problems, Training

Job stress comes in many different forms and affects our body in various ways. Although flying can be fun and therapeutic to some, however to us pilots flying is a profession and therefore we cannot run away from job stress. The sources of job stress and the stressors could be the same as any other jobs; they could be people related or equipment related.

Stress can lead to burnout, causing people to become unhappy and less productive in their work. Job stress will not only affect our health it will also affect our home life as well. Low levels of stress may not be noticeable; slightly higher levels can be good for us to enable us to function at our peak level of performance; whereas high levels of stress can be harmful, contributing to chronic disease.

Flying is a stressful profession. As pilots it is therefore important and crucial for us to carefully manage our stress level in order for us to perform at our peak and at the same time to have some available space and reserve to manage the increased stress level during non-normal situations.

Let us take a look at the diagram below. Assuming that a pilot starts work at a stress level at point “A.” Throughout the flight his stress level will vary according to the situation in the cockpit. Now assuming that he has a non-normal situation and his stress level is now increased. Since his stress level when he started work was relatively low, he still has some “reserve” left during the non-normal situation (his stress level is still below his tolerance or coping level).

If however he were to start work with a rather higher stress level of “B” and assuming the same conditions exist, now during a non-normal situation, his stress level will be above his tolerance (coping) level. This can be dangerous as his performance will be affected. He might exhibit stress symptoms that could affect his thoughts, feelings and behaviour and that could be detrimental to the flight.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: Cockpit, flying, life lessons, performance, Pilots, Stress