Flight Training - January 2015 - 4

RIGHT SEAT

By Ian J. Twombly
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DON'T BE SO SURE

EMBRACE A BASIC APPROACH

've come to believe there's a direct inverse relationship between
how sure someone is of something and how likely it is he is
correct. It doesn't matter if the fact is the V-speed of an airplane
or the score of last night's game, the result is the same. I would
say that I'm absolutely sure I'm the first person to think of this, but then
I would be a hypocrite. No, two psychologists actually have studied this
relationship between perceived knowledge and the truth, and everyone
from Shakespeare to Charles Darwin
apparently has written about it. Confucius
probably said it best: "Real knowledge is to
know the extent of one's ignorance."
It may seem counterintuitive that
anything other than true decisiveness
be brought into the cockpit. We call the
persona necessary to safely take to the
skies "pilot in command." But a lack of
complete resoluteness and PIC authority
are not mutually exclusive. They're actually complimentary.

pilots, student pilots, and even astronauts
need to review the basics on occasion.
Flying is primarily a mental game,
and each flight begins with some form
of mental preparation. Author Matthew
Bauman identifies what it takes to have
a have a great flying mind in "Wise
Words." An experienced military and
civilian pilot, Bauman has every reason
to think he knows it all-which is exactly
why he knows he doesn't, and why he
says humility is a key ingredient to a suc-

TWO HIGHLY QUALIFIED PILOTS ARE BETTER
THAN ONE BLOWHARD AND AN OVERPAID
SEAT WARMER.
Whether it's a flight instructor who has
to look something up or a private pilot
who asks ground control for a progressive taxi route, admitting you don't know
all the answers is a healthy attitude in
aviation. This practice is commonplace in
professional cockpits, where the days of
the overbearing captain who told the first
officer to sit down, shut up, and not touch
anything are long gone. In its place is
crew resource management, which at its
root is nothing more than the realization
that two highly qualified pilots are better
than one blowhard and an overpaid seat
warmer.
In the world of recreational flying it
means embracing the responsibility to
act and the realization that you won't
always know the answer. It also calls for
a curious mind and the desire to pursue
the information. It's in that spirit that we
start off the new year with a back-to-basics
approach. Flight instructors, experienced

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cessful life of flying. You can read more
beginning on page 38.
Once most of the mental preparation
is done, it's time to preflight, a skill many
of us take for granted. Technical Editor
Jill W. Tallman reins us back in with this
month's "Technique," beginning on page
42. It covers all the fundamentals of flying's most important ritual.
This month's cover story, "From Ground
to Sky," begins on page 28. Author Budd
Davisson examines the lowly takeoff-that
one maneuver we rarely practice, yet
perform for every flight. Davisson makes
a case for taking time to stop and examine
the basic takeoff, and analyze whether or
not we're meeting our full potential. This
year, realize your potential by gaining
some real knowledge. Safe flying.
Email Editor Ian J. Twombly at ian.twombly@aopa.
org; Twitter: ijtwombly; and visit Flight Training on
Facebook.

Publisher | Mark Baker

Senior VP, Media/Editor in Chief | Thomas B. Haines
Editor | Ian J. Twombly
Editor at Large | Thomas A. Horne
Managing Editor | Julie Summers Walker
Technical Editors | Mike Collins, Jill W. Tallman
Senior Editors | Dave Hirschman, Alton K. Marsh
Media Production Specialist | Sylvia Horne
Executive Assistant | Miriam E. Stoner
Contributors | Pete Bedell, Greg Brown, LeRoy Cook,
Budd Davisson, Rod Machado, Dan Namowitz, Wayne
Phillips, Bob Schmelzer, Jack Williams

eMedia Managing Editor | Alyssa J. Miller
eMedia Editor | Sarah Deener
eMedia Associate Editor | Jim Moore
eMedia Production Assistant | Melissa Whitehouse

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email: flighttraining@aopa.org
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Flight Training - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - January 2015