If you have ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a professional pilot the list below is a great start. Through education and experience the years mold his or her mind to effectively do the job and interact appropriately with the flight guests. While not every pilot practices the items on this list, remember that there are bold pilots and old pilots… but not old bold pilots!
Situational Awareness—Applies to All Situations
The Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) were written in blood, but please say something if the “coffee is hot” (code for the FAA is here). Aside from the FARs, the contextual knowledge required for legal flight includes all information in the airplane’s operating and equipment manuals and the Airman’s Information Manual. The pilot is solely responsible for any of this information he or she chooses not to remember. For a safe flight a pilot must be fully present and fully aware in the present moment while also being firmly tethered to the future that is soon and quickly becoming the present. As a duty day progresses, a pilot monitors their abilities and awareness for impairment. Fatigue can degrade process management to fixation on a single item. Be aware—don’t stare.
Safety is the priority. Efficient is safe.
Aviation is cost-prohibitive. Lives are priceless. Airplanes are most expensive when they are not in use, but dangerous when used without regard to limitations. Pilot attitudes, availability, ability, proficiency, and fatigue need to be balanced with the schedule, weather, terrain, runways, airplane performance, and system outages. The old saying goes that if a pilot is early,
he is on time, if he’s on time he’s about to be late—and late is not acceptable. However, poor planning on the part of others cannot constitute an emergency on the part of the pilot. Safety is planned—optimizing our plans makes us efficient!
Hurry up… and wait.
Plans change regularly, deadlines shift, and yet the mark of an aviation professional is to be ready with results when called upon. To rise to this standard requires an individual to treat each iteration of a plan as final and immediate. Hence, one often completes a task with urgency only for things to be delayed or changed altogether. This, however, is preferable to the alternative, when the allotted time to complete a task evaporates due to the fluid nature of aviation operations. Weather, maintenance, system outages, and rental car and hotel room reservations will hang a procrastinator out to dry. Don’t delay—do it today!
Move Fast. Never Rush.
To achieve a safe operation while maintaining efficiency in a fluid environment means that tasks in aviation are standardized using Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The SOPs are published procedures that function as both a guide and a two-way accountability tool (i.e. everyone does things the same way every time—and the “same way” is optimized from good to better to best). If mistakes are made, it is because the SOPs were either not followed or need
revision—or someone rushed to complete a task beyond their capability. Aviation demands intentionality, it is not a place for the absent minded. Think it through—then do.
Measure with a micrometer. Cut with an ax.
Risk mitigation is synonymous with planning. Flying is a high reward, high risk activity. Accurately processing all available information in conjunction with adherence to the SOPs during the planning stages—provides valuable, necessary, and sometimes life-saving margin for the operational decisions a pilot makes when he or she is dispatched on a mission. Due to the fluid nature of travel, all information is considered—and considered in the same way for every flight—even when it seems superfluous. This requires discipline, and a commitment to abandon the comfort of mediocrity for the pursuit of excellence. If it’s worth doing—do it well!