Fast Jet Performance

It's a familiar story to all of us. We're struggling with a heavy workload when along comes the boss and hands us yet another task - we roll our eyes and accept it. We might even rebel a little and let our boss know how busy we are and we might even believe him when he says that he 'Understands' and continues with 'don't rush it - Friday will do!'If your workplace is anything like mine, then you are probably having to ‘do more with less’. Our bosses are output driven, they have to be, and they will attempt to maximise the output whilst minimising the costs. Employees' salaries are normally the largest cost for any business which is why, when times are hard, jobs are the first thing to go. Recently, when UK airline Monarch transitioned from being a traditional charter carrier to a low-cost airline, they cut 30% of their staff and reduced the pay of those who remained. Leaning processes are a key management tool, more so in hard times it might seem, and are deemed essential for a company to remain competitive. All well and good, you might think, but how do we know when it’s gone too far?In UK military aviation we operate under the Military Aviation Authority (MAA) and, having faced a series of recent financial cuts, find ourselves having to think up innovative processes to do 'more with less' whilst under this increased regulatory framework.

http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/how-fighter-pilots-deal-with-change-and-regulation

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Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/fast-jet-performance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/fast-jet-performance.

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If I gave you some darts and stood you in front of a dartboard for a year, could you become the next Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor with just practise or would you need the help of someone who had some knowledge of darts? This is exactly what bored office worker Justin Irwin did in 2008. He decided that he wanted to excel at a sport but he had a problem; he was 35 and past his sporting prime.So he picked darts. He quit his £50,000 job to practise full time and prepare himself for a life of darting glory - what he found out, though, might surprise you. But before we talk about Justin's experience, let’s take the question further.  What if you could only have one of those options for a whole year - practise OR knowledge? You have a choice and in a year's time you will be entered into the prestigious Lakeside World Darts Championships in Surrey. Now, you could either stand in front of the dartboard for a year and practise for 8 hours a day but with no help whatsoever OR never throw a dart for the whole year but have every expert in the world demonstrate their technique, talk you through it, watch expert videos and give you their undivided expert advice 24/7. Which would you choose?

http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/experience-or-education-how-darts-and-a-german-race-track-can-get-you-into-the-top-124

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• Watching TV whilst eating and using your phone or tablet to look something up on the internet.

• Writing an email whilst in a business meeting.

• Texting whilst driving.

• Working out whilst listening to music and reading a book.

• Cooking, talking on the phone, texting, watching YouTube and uploading photos of the awesome meal you’ve just made.

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Management over Leadership - An Acceptable Inevitability or Purposeful Neglect?

When writing I often find it all too easy to end up widely off message narrating a vitriolic polemic about some imagined injustice in the world - this post was no different. I, like so many in the military, have strong views on leadership and we don't tolerate those who shirk that responsibility lightly. But that got me thinking - why do we place such importance on leadership; maybe the problems lies with an individual's expectation of leadership where management might have been more appropriate?

Command is the whole complex business and a position enshrined in law;

leadership is about people and turbulence; management is about stuff and

numbers’. - Watters & Horton, cited in Leadership in Defence

So if leadership is about people and turbulence, and management is about stuff and numbers, leadership just sounds so much more interesting, doesn't it? As a member of the Chartered Management Institute (you join these things when on resettlement) I receive their magazine 'Professional Manager' through the post every quarter - it makes me cringe every time I see it. The truth, however, is that it is an interesting read and this spring's edition contains articles on the value of an MBA, how email lost its way and the rising stars of the business world. It interests me as it parallels the work I do in the military but something about the term 'manager', especially if I apply it in a military context, still makes me shudder.

You see, in the military to be seen as a manager is to be thought of as uninspiring, uncharismatic and output driven. It is true that an officer will have very little formal leadership training outside of initial officer training and has to rely on learning through osmosis from those above. It could be argued that an officer should be resourceful and seek out qualifications and publications in order to prove their own leadership development; they shouldn't expect to be spoon-fed. I've always felt that, away from a theatre of operations, it can be hard to demonstrate functional leadership especially when you may not have an adversary to rally the troops against. Back at home the days flow one into another, the task is routine and the job becomes dull - yes, management can all too quickly become the order of the day.

An important thing to acknowledge early in this post is that, as abhorrent is the thought that senior military officers might be more akin to being managers than leaders, an understanding that this might actually still serve a very real purpose is important. For example, in flying training, the hierarchy is responsible for using of all of their resources in order to get students to finish on time to meet their next course start dates. If they miss the start dates then front line manning will suffer and adjustments will have to be made that will not be conducive to a steady, well-trained and functional war-fighting machine. So although a desire for inspirational leadership, through all levels of military command, might be what we think we need, actually managers might be more appropriate in certain situations.

As the services get smaller, senior figures continue to promise the Government that the task is still acceptable - after all, no one wants to tell their boss that they can't do what is being asked of them. Unfortunately, by the time we realise that we might have forgotten that 'integrity' is one of the core values of our Service, it's probably too late and we now need to deliver on what we promised. We need to deliver the same but with less and some things will have to go. Wednesday afternoon sports or physical training went many moons ago, centrally funded educational staff rides next and the one week a year adventurous training has slipped to one week in every three years. Alongside this erosion in leadership development opportunities we still have fewer people to get the job done; but it still needs to be done - is it really a surprise that some commanders get so busy that leadership becomes a second thought?

Command, leadership and management can often be referred to as the Officers' Trinity; command being the exercising of both leadership and management. Management is about achieving output whilst leadership is about getting buy-in with your message and taking people with you on your vision. Positional power gives commanders authority but if this is solely the method of control, then in times of dire need the commander will become unstuck. At these times a very real form of leadership will be required - this can be described as 'Personal Power' and it is this that differentiates the leader from the manager when in a command position.

Increasingly in the military, but also in many businesses, more and more contractors are being employed to fill in the gaps and to provide a more cost-effective way of delivering defence. In the RAF, the Whole Force Concept sees contractors and civil servants mixed in with regular and reserve servicemen and servicewomen creating a very unique environment in which to operate for both sides. On my station there are 40 contractors and sub-contractors who make up 70% of the Station strength; this means that only 30% of people on the Station are military. Each contractor has their own way of operating and their own pre-conceived ideas about defence which requires the military person to employ a very unique and individual approach to their working practises. In the military we all agree that an order is an order; they are rarely delivered in such a perfunctory manner, however, but still the expectation is that, once given, the direction will be followed. This approach is not always possible when working with contractors who may have different aims and objectives.

When Tim Collins, as Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st Royal Irish Regiment, gave his rousing eve-of-battle speech to his men on 19 March 2003 it was necessary and appropriate. It was what a leader is supposed to do and there is no doubt that the message Collins imparted to his men that day saved lives and helped to achieve their unit's success on the battlefield. When Winston Churchill delivered his famous 'We Shall Fight on the Beaches' speech to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940 it was at the height of the battle for France and he warned of a very real possible invasion by Germany. His speech was another stirring battle cry that motivated the country to engage in war and inevitably ensure its victorious outcome.

'We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...' - Churchill, 4 June 1940

Both of the above examples demonstrate effective leadership but do these speeches have any real place in the peacetime military or is the expectation that 'everyman will do his duty' enough to warrant a more distant leadership style more akin to management? I guess the question is: In peacetime, why bother with leadership at all?

I have served under many men and women in all three UK Services and under international commanders, too. Some I greatly admired but others I am happy to never encounter again - I am sure in business the same can be said. I have witnessed people progress through their careers gaining promotion based on qualities that have no place in war-fighting and who are loathed by the people they command. I have also seen commanders whose careers have been limited by being committed leaders, putting their people first and the paperwork second and who I would have followed into a high-threat environment without a second thought. So how can leadership be defined when away from the core task of war-fighting; is it truly just 'management with a smile'?

Personally, the best description of leadership that I've ever heard is:

The quote above is not too colourful and kind of bland but as a usable description of leadership, I think it works. A Google definition search on management finds it described as 'the process of dealing with or controlling things or people'. If we look at these two definitions, albeit with the recognition that there are many more out there, leadership talks of getting someone 'wanting to do something' and management describes the 'controlling' of people.

These are very different things and here, I believe, lies the fundamental problem.

Although management, in theory and in times of peace, can most definitely be applied effectively in the pursuit of outcomes and goals, it should be acknowledged that it possesses a destructive influence on the longer term strategic aims especially in a dynamic businesses or the military. Management lacks inspirational intent and if we don't inspire our people they will eventually walk away. And let's not think that all our senior people are leaders either - I remember someone saying to me 'when you don't aspire to be the boss, it's time to leave'.

Leadership has nothing to do with rank; routinely I will witness a junior serviceman or woman showing significant leadership ability amongst higher ranking peers - this can be found at work or when operating in all ranks adventurous training exercises. However, with a reduction in adventure training opportunities, as the services reduce in size and the task stays the same, other ways to develop leadership will need to be found. I think we have discussed the difference between a commander and a leader but to re-iterate, all bosses have authority but they are not all leaders. I believe leaders have a responsibility for those they oversee. Leaders must make sure their charges are progressing in their careers and that they are growing as individuals; this is where I believe the difference between leadership and management is most stark. As a manager I cared about output and, because of this, I had to make sure that those responsible for that output where functional. Without a functional team I could not output students to the front line. Now, as a leader this wasn't enough - I had to make sure that I was inspiring my team, that I personally took responsibility for their growth and career progression and that the product I outputted (students) were motivated to succeed on their front line squadrons; a very different task indeed.

‘Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away’. - Vice Admiral James Stockdale, US Navy, 1987

In the military, and in business, care must be taken to understand the difference between management and leadership and the consequences of both. I believe that we can, and do, populate command positions with managers that are very good at securing output, but let's not expect anything else from them. As a military we must understand that if we follow this policy we are losing something else, something that is so very important. We are losing the ability to inspire the next generation of leaders and maintain a front-line focused, core fighting capability and this is no different in business. It might be acceptable in the short-term but as a 'plan' it is a poor one that will lead to the growing of process driven decision makers further down the line.

So what can be done? I think that we need to recognise that developing leadership in benign conditions is a difficult process and we should expect that the majority of our authority will be managers. This doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing if it is recognised within an organisation.

To be an effective leader takes practise and, if you attempt to become a leader on your own, you will probably gain haters as you are leaving the other 'managers' behind. A leader is someone who has integrity and sacrifice, someone who is passionate in putting the team first and themselves second. Someone who recognises that a failure of one of their subordinates is a failure of themselves. A leader will actively look for ways to make their workplace better for all, opportunities to grow their team's skill-sets and progress the team's careers. If you put your team first then they will find that they are capable of so much more - I have pushed my team into positions that they felt were way above their abilities but, as they saw the belief I had in them, allowed them to achieve more than they ever could have imagined.

'The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are

to where they have not been.' - Henry Kissinger

It's hard to practise getting better at playing a sport if you don't have anybody to play against - leadership is no different. In order to practise leadership, you need to facilitate the opportunity for doing so. Organisations must make time for team building days, adventure and educational training and individual development. If we do not do this then we can only expect to develop managers who might be good at 'stuff and numbers' but won't be good at 'people and turbulence'.

It should be an organisation's priority to not allow leadership to be left to chance.

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I've had a guy in his late teens write in to ask a few questions so I thought I'd share them as it might help others who are looking at a potential career in the military. This is a military centric post so skip this one if you are in the business world but there might be one or two things that could help you at job interviews or with your working relationships. The guy who wrote in was looking to become a more well-rounded candidate for when he attends the Officer Aircrew Selection Centre (OASC) at RAF Cranwell later in the year.During our conversation I had to make it clear that it has been many years since I attended OASC and even when I spoke to our youngest students it was also clear that it had been a few years since they had attended too. The RAF Recruitment Offices should be able to provide you with the latest recruitment information although I have heard that they are not always the best places to find out what serving on an RAF flying squadron is actually like. This is because few pilots can be spared for recruitment tasks as they possess a valuable skill-set that is of more use in a cockpit and not behind a desk but luckily you have me! I've gone and trawled the squadron speaking to staff and students on your behalf and some of the answers might surprise you, they definitely surprised me!

• Firstly, What do you believe are the most important skills/qualities for a potential pilot and officer to display in general?

http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/7-essential-questions-new-pilots-need-to-ask

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The 90% solution, some guy called 'Pareto' and why the best air combat pilots are often seen as the laziest.

It became apparent to me during my last tour that a lot of the effort that I put into my work was inefficient. I remember speaking to a senior officer whilst I was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan with the US Army and she said - 'you have to just get the work out of the door as complete as you can - I aim for the 90% solution'. In the military we have to be as efficient as possible because we work with taxpayer's money and there is a lot of work to be done. The workload on some postings can be quite extreme and I have had tours that are no exception; I have worked genuine 12 to 16 hour days in my career for 5 days a week (or 7 days a week on ops, which, of course, is entirely to be expected). Now, I get that people in civilian life also work long hours (and rightly so if combined with the appropriate remuneration) but when you have long hours mixed in with flying a £20 million aircraft twice a day - that's when you realise the value of the 90% solution.

Life-saver. Fact.

So, here's the deal. Your boss sends you a document attachment on email. Firstly, it is quite good to remind people that email is 'email' and not 'immediate' mail - sometimes you aren't able to respond within 20 minutes (especially when I'm flying). Maybe put in your signature block something that says that you only look at email at 1100 and 1600 and then get yourself involved in really connecting with people like talking to them face to face over some tea, maybe. So, you have the document from the boss and he's asked you to précis it for him before tomorrow; the issue being that when you open the document you realise that it's a 100 page long freaking nightmare and it's 'late o'clock'. The 90% solution means that you don't bother with a detailed read, just skim-read it and get it back out; don't invest too much time on it as the truth is your boss won't either. Unless you are an artist with a significant amount of time to wallow in your own narcissistic indulgences, you will probably find it hard to accommodate all of the tasks you have to complete. One of the major issues of the modern workplace is that it is full of bosses that do two things: they accept every tasking from higher authority without reservation and they delegate far too expeditiously and without restriction. We'd all probably do the same in their position too but, as a worker, we need to have a system that can get that work done without the 12 hour days - and the 90% solution is just that.

If you have the same routine task coming in every so often you can make it into a simplified process and write it down. For instance, when the squadron was first starting up we had 3 or 4 VIP visits per month. This became totally overwhelming and young instructors that should have been perfecting their core skills in the air found themselves writing instructions for the visits - a time-consuming task. The instructors soon found similarities in these visits and started to develop processes to ease their workload. They made a template that had everything necessary for every visit already completed; all they had to add were the names, dates and times, print it out and send it. They got very efficient in achieving the small amount of work that really mattered to deliver the 90% solution. They were then able to go flying again which made them more confident and experienced - two essential requirements for keeping young jet pilots alive.

This leads me on to another core principle that has saved me a huge amount of time over my career - the 80/20 or 'Pareto' Principle.

'The Pareto Principle states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes' - Wiki

The Pareto Principle was first defined by an Italian economist called Vilfredo Pareto who, in 1896, recognised that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he was at university and being all creative like academics are sometimes. In some businesses it is found that 20% of sales account for 80% of profit, that 20% of motorists account for 80% of accidents and 80% of a company's complaints come from 20% of its customers! If you can identify the 20% of the work that you do that causes 80% of the results then you can use the remainder of your working time more efficiently thus saving considerable time and effort. For example, when you go into work, you probably have a list of tasks in mind that you need to complete that day and you probably allocate time for them all (even subconsciously - ie. I'll do that phone call at midday for 30 mins etc). What the Pareto Principle says is to look at your day and find the core tasks that are the most important to achieving the biggest outcomes and hit them hard, putting the other tasks to the bottom of the list. By doing so you will achieve 80% of what you are supposed to achieve. One good way of proving this theory is to just not do a low level task that you have been assigned and see if anyone notices - chances are that the task was a throw away comment from your boss and will be forgotten about in a day or two anyway. So, if we apply the law and look at what we do that really achieves the most of our outcomes we might be able to free up time to invest in relationships - maybe talking face to face with people instead of 'immediate mailing' sorry, emailing.

So, why are some of the best air combat pilots also the laziest? Remember the 80/20 Principle and the 90% solution that we just heard about - well, some jet pilots are just pretty good at applying those two techniques. You see, to get from the top 10% of high performing people to the top 1% actually requires little extra effort. This is because those in the top 10% become extremely comfortable and are happy to stay in the top 10%. If you want to get into the top 1% you have to 'stretch' yourself and 'stretching' just isn't very 'comfortable'. What the best air combat pilots realise is that sometimes it is easy to get stuck in 'analysis paralysis' or 'trapped in lag' to use some fighter pilot jargon. When you analyse too much you can get bogged down - you start looking at, and investing your time in, the minutiae. So what the best pilots do is look for the 20% of what they do that will give them 80% of the return. Incidentally, on my aircraft in 1v1 air combat the 20% that gets me 80% of the results is the following:

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So, it's fair to say that the majority of the population would probably view fast jet pilots as an arrogant bunch of people who display significant narcissistic attributes. Any high-achiever whether a race car driver, wealthy stockbroker or famous musician/actor would also most probably be thought of as cocky and arrogant but this is often not the case. It has been said that the Millennials, or Generation Y (those born in the 1990s), are the most 'self-satisfied' and entitled generation yet and they are frequently dismissed as lazy by the baby-boomer generation (those born between 1946-1964). In the UK we are currently seeing a shift from hereditary wealth to a meritocracy where hard work and ideas are the order of the day - Generation Y are at the forefront of this change.

Generation Y are confident, connected and open to change

Generation Y are confident, connected and open to change and this can be threatening to other generations who might feel a bit redundant or can't work 'them interwebs'. The baby-boomer's place as the wealthiest generation is caused by 3 things - size, social change (women in the workplace) and education. The current class system in British politics is slowly being replaced by a meritocracy. Yes, the new generations are slowly getting wealthier but arguably only because of inherited wealth and a public school education. Michael Young, later Lord Young of Dartington wrote, at the age of 85, of his worries. 

Young observed in his 2001 article, “if meritocrats believe . . . that their advancement comes from their own merits, they feel they deserve whatever they can get. They can be insufferably smug, much more than people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody’s son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. The newcomers actually believe they have morality on their side.”  A confusing picture indeed for generations split apart by many years.  Right now, though, the current generation of movers and shakers are this 'smug' Generation Y as Lord Young so eloquently states - they are also the new pilots and high achievers to be found in emerging enterprises such as tech start-ups. So, what does this have to do with Impostor Syndrome or confidence and arrogance?

Impostor Syndrome can affect up to 70% of people in the workplace today

'It is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Notably, impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women.' - Wiki.  Impostor Syndrome affects more women than men and, as a demographic, more African Americans who are thought to suffer from it as a result of positive discrimination policies. Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, suffers from it and the condition was the basis for her book 'Lean In' which promotes the role of women in the workplace. It is taught, by performance coaches, that three-quarters of those sat at a business meeting are worried that they don't know what they are doing, that they are a fraud and that they are going to get found out. Although the example above concerns a business meeting, it is equally true of a cockpit, especially if occupied by a student or underconfident pilot who is low on flying hours. Military aviation is an unforgiving business and in my career I have lost more than 30 of my friends - I stopped counting at 30. These are not all from fast jet incidents; I have lost many from helicopter and multi-engine incidents too. I call them incidents because I believe none were accidents; there is always responsibility somewhere whether from pilot or maintenance error all the way up to Governmental neglect and under funding - the subject of another post, I'm sure.   

So, if 70% of the population suffers from Imposter Syndrome then does this 70% include pilots?  I can assure you it does

When I was in training I was fully engaged in my mission of getting to the front line - it was all I could think about. Your whole life seems to revolve around it - our initial training at BRNC Dartmouth or RAFC Cranwell is immersive - it has to be in order to turn you from a civilian into a military Officer. Then you move onto flying training which becomes arduous and totally unforgiving, placing you firmly in your stretch zone for months at a time. You see your course mates struggle and fail trips and you might fail the odd trip yourself. The guy or girl you thought was a 'sure thing' for a Harrier or Typhoon cockpit stumbles on a check ride and you start to have massive self-doubt - 'If they can't pass it how will I ever be able to?' Friends are 'chopped' around you (removed from training) and, if they are lucky, they might get a chance to be re-streamed onto rotary or multi-engine but, if not, then their military flying career ends. You've invested so much of your life pursuing this goal that you start to wonder if it's worth it. The stress can be life changing - relationships end and girlfriends/boyfriends leave. I was once asked by a student who was struggling towards the end of Advanced Flying Training on the Hawk T1 'Is it all worth it?' - he never found out, he was chopped 2 trips later.

If a student is doubting their ability when flying with an instructor in the aircraft then you can be doubly sure that they are doubting themselves when they have to fly solo. At our flying school we have a dedicated 'Student Solo Outbrief'; this is there to make sure that the authorising officer of the solo student has covered everything necessary to confirm that they are in date for the multitude of currencies and qualifications that they need to fly solo. This is because the authorising officer has to be sure that the student is going to bring themselves, and the £20 million Hawk T2, back home. The list is extensive - have they flown dual in the last 7 days, did they pass the preceding sortie to a satisfactory level, is their instrument rating fit for the actual and forecast weather conditions, do they have any outstanding currencies and are they in date for the many drills and evolution's that they need in order to fly as Captain of the aircraft? It is extensive and appropriately so but it can also be incredibly daunting for the student as the magnitude of the responsibility they are about to be given starts to dawn on them. 

As pilots their character does not allow them to appear weak in  front of their peers

As pilots their character does not allow them to appear weak in front of their peers so when you ask them 'Are you happy to take this aircraft by yourself?' they will always reply with the affirmative. But, away from the squadron, when they are back in their comfort zone with family, friends and maybe even some of their closer course mates, they will reveal the truth - they are scared as hell and, as instructors, we know this. When we were students we were scared as hell too, not only of doing something wrong and throwing a jet away, but also of failure. The same goes for an instructor who is required to teach a student a discipline that he hasn't practised in a while. The more dynamic the nature of the flight plus the more aircraft and people involved plus the recency and flying currency of the instructor involved all add up to the level of apprehension felt by the instructor. This can be huge, the responsibility immense and, in my time as a Flight Commander on the squadron, I have had many instructors approach me with their fears. This is a good thing as it at least means that the communication channels to higher authority are working but the need to manage the variables that are causing the apprehension is very necessary. Sometimes I'd remove the instructor from the sortie for further dedicated training with an experienced and appreciative instructor or I might just fly with the instructor myself (if capacity for this existed in the sortie profile).

So, when we think of a fast jet pilot as arrogant, or even a commercial pilot, who carries huge responsibilities, maybe what you are observing is a coping mechanism which is helping the individual remain confident enough to get into the aeroplane and do the job. After Andreas Lubitz supposedly flew his airliner into the French Alps, many Germanwings pilots refused to fly the next day - was this truly due to concern over the Airbus design as was cited in the news or was it a display of severe and sudden apprehension? I recently saw an airline flight roster for a new First Officer who had just joined the company (albeit after a 16 year long career flying military aircraft). Over the year the First Officer's roster would give him one weekend at home per month. Now, if he had a small family or his wife was working, how much is he going to be at home to support them? Not much, I'd guess, as on his mid-week days off his partner is quite possibly at work and cracks in their relationship will, no doubt, soon appear. Now transpose that roster onto a young First Officer straight out of flight school with maybe some financial debt from his flying training and earning not a great initial wage - you now have problems both at work and at home. 

A pilot's arrogance is just an attempt to portray confidence

It is nothing more than thinly veiled Impostor Syndrome that is common throughout society - those that fly aircraft are no different, they are just trying not to get found out either. As your experience grows and you become more confident you start to care less about the opinion of others and you become more content. But until then, pilots are just not too keen on letting people know that they are all too aware of there own mortality and limited ability. So, the next time you think of a high-achieving pilot as arrogant, they are probably just feeling like an impostor which makes them more similar to you than you think. Until we slip the surly bonds of Early again - fly safe!

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I've recently been away from work for a couple of weeks having to take some remaining leave before the deadline of 31 March when all leave resets. I've done a few things; I went on a long hike with the wife, went to see some family - that sort of thing. But when you are away from the cockpit for any period of time you have to 'come down' from the level that you have been operating at. Conversely, before you go back to work you need to re-energise yourself to get back up to speed. This is the same with any job; the more complicated the profession the harder it is to 'switch off' when on holiday. Some people take a few days to fully relax and some need longer. One of my pilots will only take his holidays over two weeks as he says that he can't fully 'switch off' from work with only one. When I was a student pilot I would sometimes not be able to 'switch off' at all or would find that I could be quite relaxed by the Tuesday of my holiday but by the Thursday I was starting to think about the cockpit again and would get worked up about it. 

Training as a fast jet pilot has to be one of the most uncomfortable and stressful things that you can do

It only takes one failed trip for the instructors' eyes to start looking in your direction and if you don't pass the next trip then you are definitely in trouble.

So how do I get myself back into the groove after a lay-off. As it stands, tomorrow I have an 'Emergency Sim' which is a 60 day currency that tests me on my emergency handling. Fast jets can be complicated little things and the Hawk T2 is no exception. Although the aircraft has two cockpits in tandem, the simulator has only the front cockpit represented. We have two simulators on the squadron - they are called Full Mission Simulators (FMS) and you have to wear your full Aircraft Equipment Assembly (AEA)  when in them. This means that you dress as if you were going to fly the actual aircraft wearing your flying helmet, mask, Life Jacket and g-pants. The FMS isn't a motion simulator as these tend to be used for multi-engine aircraft to simulator asymmetric thrust which, as long as you're not flying a Canberra, SR-71 or Maverick's F-14 in 'Top Gun', should not present too many issues in modern fast jet aviation. The FMS has 360 degree visuals and we use it to not only prepare students for an airborne sortie but also to consolidate the students learning at the end of a flying phase - the FMS can be the last event on the Air Combat Manoeuvring (ACM) phase for example. But, unlike the Hawk T1 on our sister squadron, we also have 6 Flying Training Devices (FTDs) which are very similar to the FMS but are an extension of something that we used to use in the old days which was the 'Cardboard Cockpit'. The 'Cardboard Cockpit' is just that - it is a cardboard representation of the aircraft's cockpit and in the good ol' days you were issued one to learn your checks on when you were in ground school and before you started flying. On the Hawk T2 we don't have these anymore and we use the FTDs instead. The FTD is something that you can sit in without all your flight gear on and practise your checks but it also flies like the FMS! It isn't a truly representative flight model, for example it will climb faster than the actual aircraft but it has 90% of the switches you'd find in the actual aeroplane. It has 3 touch-screen monitors that you can setup the Multi-Function Displays (MFDs) with - these are like very small monitors that show things such as your weapons stores page, moving map, synthetic radar display and even your hydraulics status page as there is no analogue display for this anymore. The great thing is that you can pretty much use the FTDs at anytime to practise any of your checks. 

In the FTDs you can even get airborne and practise your circuits or link them up and just chase your course mates around the sky hoping that an instructor doesn't walk in and tell you all to stop acting like children

So the FTD, and before that, the 'Cardboard Cockpit' are two great ways to practise getting back up to speed with the complicated task of flying the Hawk T2. But, at home I don't have a 'Cardboard Cockpit' as none were made for the Hawk T2 and the FTDs are, well, at the squadron. So how else might I work myself back up for the simulator tomorrow? When you are learning to fly for the first time, this might be on gliders at 16 or on a light aircraft in the military/civilian flight school later on, your instructor will introduce the notion of 'chair flying' to you. 

Chair flying is a very powerful tool which allows you to imagine yourself actually in the aircraft practising whatever it is you are needing to do on your next assessed sortie

The 'Cardboard Cockpit' was actually very good in this respect as you could touch the printed dials and switches and instil some aspect of muscle memory into your checks sequence. Chair flying is a visualisation technique that pilots, racing drivers, public speakers and sport persons have all used to enhance their performances.   When I prepare for a complicated sortie or have been out of the cockpit for longer than a week I will invest time in visualising that return to the cockpit - this is also essential if your flying rate (the number of hours you fly per month) is low. It is critical that a pilot keeps themselves up to speed and each person will have subtly different ways of doing it. I prefer to give myself a hour alone with my Flight Reference Cards (FRCs) - these are the checklists for the handling and emergencies that can affect the aircraft. 

I then use the Overview - Preview - Inview - Review process

Overview. I normally go through each card first, skim reading them really - this I call an overview. Unlike in other aircraft, the checks that are done in fast jets are not routinely done from the cards. This is not true on the Tornado GR4 as the Weapon System Officer (WSO) will initiate a challenge and response from the FRCs but on single-seat aircraft and fast jet training aircraft such as the Hawk T2 your FRCs are unlikely to be used in flight at all. All of your drills are memorised as there is rarely enough time (or space in the cockpit) to be dragging your check cards out the whole time! It is important then that you are familiar with the cards in case you need to use them. This overview is a process of just looking at the layout of the normal drill cards and looking through the boldface emergencies. The boldface emergencies are the drills that a pilot or WSO must know verbatim; students are routinely challenged on their boldface drills at the morning meteorological brief, on airborne sorties and in an emergency simulator - just like mine tomorrow. 

As part of my overview I will imagine me getting into my flight gear, going to the Operations Room and signing the jet out and then walking out to the aircraft 

I might even look at tomorrow's weather so I can forecast what runway we might be on and can plan which way I will taxy out of the line. I will imagine doing my initial checks, the aircraft walk around and strapping into the ejection seat. I will visualise the dials and displays in front of me - I'll think about what radio calls I need to make before engine start and I might even look at the flying programme (if it's been emailed out the night before) to see what callsign I'll be using so I can practise using it - it all helps to build a mental picture. If I had a cardboard cockpit I'd use that - some people close their eyes but you need to make the environment as similar to the one you'll be in when you are actually doing the event - this is why using a simulator to practise or the FTDs on the squadron is so good. When chair flying there is little point in having music playing in the background if there isn't going to be music in your aircraft - we're not on an EasyJet flight here, well - not just yet anyway! I might practise my start-up and pre-take-off checks here too but I don't go any further than visualising lining up on the runway. I then visualise that I'd just landed and I was taxiing back in - I'd go through those checks too right up to and including vacating the aircraft and walking back in. I separate the actual airborne content and save that for the preview - it just works better for me that way, you might like to do it differently. Preview. If you were looking at a textbook the overview would've been to look at the front and back covers and maybe the index. The preview extends on this - you'd now read the first and last paragraph of each chapter. In the world of aviation this is the bit where I'd look at the sortie content - I'd write this down on an A4 piece of paper as a list something like this (the italics are for your understanding):  SUTTO (start-up, taxi, take-off) SID 31R  (Standard Instrument Departure - runway 31 Righthand) HASLLT Cx (Checks we perform for every sortie to make sure we are tolerant to the effects of 'g' and that we are operating in a safe area) Stall Max Performance Manoeuvres Spin LL (Low level) Instrument Recovery - TAC/PAR Circuits (Norm, LL) - Flapless straight-in approach  Inview. So, the preview part gave me some more information and I can now visualise the sortie in more detail. The inview part is when I fill in the blank spaces. I'd get my charts out and read up on the SID (departure) that I might be flying anticipating level-off heights, radio calls and power settings required. I would go and make sure I know my HASLLT cxs and practise them so they are fluent - Height, Airframe, Security (for an inverted check), Location, Lookout and TCAS. I would read up on what the Stall entails, what is the fight profile? I would draw it out and then run it through moving my hands to where the gear and flap levers are.

I even go so far as to anticipate the trim changes required 

Are they pitch up or pitch down? I would read up on the max performance manoeuvres and then think about the area I need to fly to in order to get my spin done - I need to be above 25,000 ft to enter my spin so I'll need a handover to a different Air Traffic agency for that and I can practise that radio call now so I don't stumble over it tomorrow. I'd read and write about all of the sortie content and put it on an A4 piece of paper - it will become a crib sheet that I can look at before the sortie briefing tomorrow. Some people use a mind map but I prefer a list of how the sortie will flow. It is also critical to think of your 'link' flying here - how are you going to transition from one event to the next? Will you speed up or slow down, change height or transit to a different piece of airspace? Review. This step is the most critical one and I normally do this twice, once after the inview and then I repeat it prior to the sortie briefing the next day to refresh my knowledge. The review is looking at that A4 piece of paper on which you have written a crib sheet that will help to jog your memory the next day. Take this opportunity to add any more information that you feel might be pertinent to the sortie you are about to fly. And that's it - put the crib sheet somewhere safe, take a break and don't spend longer than an hour on this; the mind gets tired after 30 mins so maybe do the Overview/Preview - tea break - Inview/Review and only then can you go back and watch cats falling off chairs on YouTube.

Visualisation is a powerful tool that, used correctly, can really improve your chances of success in the cockpit and in business

Remember, you lose half of your capacity when you put on your flight helmet and strap a jet plane to your back. It's the same in business, don't wait until you're making that sale or giving the presentation, it'll be too late and you'll look like an idiot - practise IS your friend.  Until we slip the surly bonds of Earth again - fly safe!

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