WARNING SIGNS IN PILOTS What Scares the Experts Some Initial Findings from AERI Bill Rhodes Copyright, Aerworthy Consulting, LLC September 2009

Airmanship Education and Research Initiative (AERI) AERI’s Sponsors  Avemco Insurance Company  Cirrus Aircraft Corporation  Advanced Aviation Simulators, Inc.  Independence Aviation, LLC.  Research Boston Corp.  University of Minnesota, Minneapolis  University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

An Informal Survey ■ … of a group of aviation enthusiasts ■ Facts ■ Predictions

What is scary?

A Telling Tale ■ I began asking around about what scares experts ■ Patterns emerged (we’ll see some soon) ■ Then, eerily, some individuals I knew emerged ■ Even more eerily…

The Experts: Hands-on Experience ■ Mature, highly experienced (OK, mostly old) pilots ■ Insurance—Underwriters and Claims ■ Experienced CFI’s ■ Accident Investigators

Expert Pilots--Observed ■ Experimental Design (Partial) - Simulator work - Confidence-inspiring reactions ■ Results - More patterns - Positive reactions ■ Limitations: Sample size

What to do… or Who to be? ■ Doing is important - Industry teaches what to do - Often, pilots know what to do, and fail to do it ■ The sort of person one is matters a lot - Common knowledge among GA insiders ■ But… - Little or no theory of airmanship - No convenient language ■ Working these issues…

So, What Scares Experts?

HTS1: Take risks ■ But doesn’t flying always involve risk? ■ A question of calibration ■ Risk-management ■ Self-Assessment

HTS2: Know it all ■ Resist advice and instruction - Hurry through instruction - Don’t study; don’t listen - Blame airplane, sim, instructor ■ Brag a lot - Status Consciousness - If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard “pilot” and “ego” in the same sentence …

HTS3: Plan on the unrealistic/barely realistic ■ Lack of awareness of risk ■ Full (or beyond) exploitation of airplane’s capabilities ■ Full (or beyond) exploitation of own capabilities

HTS4: Be in a hurry ■ Gotta get moving ■ Gotta get there ■ Gotta speed through training ■ Got no time for the real business of flying

HTS5: Be extremely confident in piloting skills ■ We need confidence, of course… ■ The trick seems to be in knowing how confident to be ■ And in being realistic about ourselves and what we attempt

HTS6: Advance very quickly ■ Upgrade quickly to high-performance equipment ■ Race through instruction/ratings

HTS7: Show off ■ Pilots and their airplanes really are doing something remarkable ■ “Pushing it”

HTS8: Ignore the Book(s) and the Mentors ■ Performance ■ Avionics and Accessories ■ Weather ■ Human factors

“Scary Pilot” Syndrome ■ Lack of Skills? No! ■ Lack of Humility? YES! ■ CFI’s can easily work to develop skills ■ But a scary character is a challenge

So…Who should a pilot try to be? ■ Well, not scary! ■ What are the qualities we trust? ■ Not sure yet, but looks like: - Self-Knowledge - Self-Mastery - Caring about what’s really important - Giving aviation the time and devotion it (and families) deserve