Stupid-proof Your Flying with Aviation Safety — AviatorCast 137

https://youtu.be/wz7qEGln8g4

What is the biggest liability we have as pilots, in our support of aviation safety? It's OURSELVES. We are the ultimate decision makers. If we don't make good choices, then bad things happen while flying.

That's why we need to stupid-proof our flying as much as possible, in the name of aviation safety.

In this podcast we will discuss:

Why getting your head right FIRST, NEXT and LAST is the most important thing you can do.

How Checklists help keep us pilots in check.

Why habits, gouges and routines are essential in a fast paced environment.

How using recurrent training can make your skills skyrocket.

As a pilot I hope you're always seeking to make better decisions, because your life and the lives of others depend on it. It's simply part of our being as pilots to reach for that higher way of flying.

Episode Transcript

On this episode of AviatorCast, Stupid Proof Your Flying for Aviation Safety.

Welcome, aviators, to another episode of AviatorCast. Load up your flight bag with useful flight training topics, interviews and aviation passion. Let’s kick the tires and light the fires. Coming to you from Angle of Attack headquarters in Homer, Alaska, here’s your host and flight instructor, Chris Palmer.

Welcome, aviators, to another episode of AviatorCast. My name is Chris Palmer, coming to you from Homer, Alaska. Great to have you here. Hope you’re well. Hope you are working toward your aviation goals here for a little bit more information, inspiration, and just a step forward in this podcast today. So I thought of a topic of talking about like stupid proofing your flying, and some ways that we can build some routines, some checklists, some mindset into stupid proofing what we do, because at the end of the day, a lot of us have tendencies to do stupid things, and I think that’s just the human condition, right? That’s generally what we are always trying to do. So in aviation, we watch out for ourselves that way, make sure that we are trying to keep the ultimate safety.

So we are going to talk about in this particular podcast why getting your head right first, next and last is the most important thing you can do. That goes to human factors, that goes to that important decision making. Also being introspective, and knowing what you’re thinking and feeling, and how that plays out to aviation safety. How checklists help keep us pilots in check, also why habits, gouges, and routines are essential in a fast paced environment, and how using recurrent training can make your skills skyrocket.

So let’s just dive right in and go through several of these and have a discussion. So first off is the mindset stuff. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Kind of a funny saying that my wife says every now and again. Now, one thing I talk about every now and again is that humility is one of the traits that we certainly need as pilots. We know that there are hazardous attitudes out there that we learn about when we do flight training, and they are certainly true, they are present. We have all of them to a certain degree or another. We have several of them most, so you’d have to identify what those are. We’re talking about those things like resignation, anti-authority, invulnerability, macho. One I came up with was know-it-all, and there’s several others that I’m forgetting off the top of my head.

But those things that are kind of human nature that we tend to gravitate toward as an attitude towards certain things. So those are called, again, hazardous attitudes. You probably heard of them before, but the biggest thing we can do for aviation safety, for stupid proofing our flying, is to have humility. And this goes back to one of the core beliefs I have, even when it comes to aviation accidents, is that I never place myself as being better or more professional than the ...