Life Lessons From Cockpit

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

When pilots fly, they could be exposed to environment and situations beyond their control that could test their knowledge and skills to the limit. This is where their experience could play a part in dealing with adverse situations. Whilst experience is necessary what is more important is the type of training that a pilot goes through, throught his career.

In the old days all training were conducted in the actual aircraft. As such the type of training that pilots went through was limited due to safety concern and aircraft limitations. With technological advancement pilots training could now be conducted in flight “simulators.” A simulator is a training device, a replica of the airplane cockpit that simulates the experience of flying an aircraft. It has a realistic motion, sound as well as visual to display the outside world to pilots. It is so realistic, that once inside the simulator pilots will easily be immersed in the realm of a flight.

Outside view of a flight simulator

In the simulator, the flight instructor will be able to simulate all types of malfunctions that one could possibly think of. A typical pilot’s training is a flight from point A to point B, subjecting him to various malfunctions and adverse environmental conditions enroute. In a way, the training is similar to training in scenario planning in the corporate world where executives generate strategic plans to cope with future changes in the business world.

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Flight Instructor’s Station

What the simulator training does is to create an experience data base for the various scenarios that pilots could use when faced with actual conditions. That is why the more experienced he is, the more data and scenarios he will have in his “experience file.”

A typical training session - approach and landing

Lessons learned from the strict pilots discipline is the type of training that they have to go through before they could take charge of the multi million dollar airplane. A pilot is considered as the CEO and he should be able to lead and react to the changes to the environment and to make decisions affecting the flight. Perhaps we should do this too in the corporate world where executives are subject to similar simulated training before they could be at the helm of the corporation.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: flight simulator, Life Lessons from Cockpit, Pilots, scenario planning, Training

Another life lesson that I learned from the cockpit is about teamwork as practiced by the pilots and cabin crew, about how flight crews build the team and how they maintain team cohesiveness especially in an emergency situation.

In any organization or whenever we are involved in any group activities, working as a team is very important. Why is it important for pilots and cabin crew to work well as a team? Well, in aviation, studies have shown that a significant portion of accidents were caused by breakdown in teamwork, where crew members were working as individuals rather than as a team. And I am sure in life too a lot of failures that are encountered in reaching goals, making targets or simply abandoning a project is largely contributed to breakdown in teamwork. Let us now look at how pilots manage to build a good team and maintain that team cohesiveness.

• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Pilots and cabin crew do not fly with the same people all the time. They can be scheduled to fly with anybody and the bigger the crew population is, the lesser will be their chances of flying with the same people. Imagine having to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of so many individuals. Therefore, to prevent team members jostling for positions each time they fly, they have documented and defined the roles and responsibilities of team members. There is no dispute on who will be the leader for the flight and what roles the other team members play during normal conditions as well as in emergencies.

• Use of checklists. From the beginning to the end of the flight pilots refer to their checklists all the time. During non-normal situations, each pilot will be busy with his own designated tasks and there could be periods where the captain might not have the time to monitor his co-pilot. Therefore the use of checklists ensures all the required tasks are accomplished (without supervision) and who is supposed to accomplish a particular task.

• Training to enhance teamwork. Pilots continuously attend training sessions throughout their career. Apart from the twice yearly training to maintain and test their proficiency in flying a particular aircraft, pilots attend other training programs such as the crew resource management (CRM) training. All their training teaches and guides them to work well as a team and to further enhance teamwork by subjecting them to various non-normal situations that encourages them to use the team synergy to solve problems.

We can use the above examples and discipline used by pilots and other members of the flight crew in our daily life. It can be applied when working on a project in the office, when working with family members and anytime when we are in a team to further enhance teamwork and to help produce that winning team.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: checklists, Life Lessons from Cockpit, Pilots, roles and responsibilities, teamwork, Training