How Are The Best Pilots Made? Are They Really Fearless?

With the recent accidents in the aviation industry, a lot of my business clients and actor friends have been asking the same question, "How?".  Occasionally I'll get "Why?".  No one has ever asked what the key to success is when things go wrong as a pilot.  The real keys of success are universal and simple.

Without being part of the accident investigation team, it is really tough to answer about any of these incidents directly with any authority.  That said, there are some common threads in pilots, business owners, realtors and actors that can help identify the best among any of those groups.

One of the biggest debates in pilot circles is of course the military v. civilian trained pilots.  At the end of the day it really depends on the kind of flying you want to do.  There are military trained pilots who have never flown a single engine airplane who would be dangerous doing it and there are civilian pilots who have never been in a spin or supersonic or even upside down who would be equally dangerous doing any of those things.

Either of them could be trained to accomplish the tasks over time.  Recently I went out for a flight review in a small airplane and the 20 year old flight instructor asked a great question.  She said "Why do all of you airline guys fly like this?" referring to my quick adjustments to the flight profile.

The explanation I gave fits the Asiana Airlines accident at SFO.  Think about it like comparing a bus to a skate board.  When a bus gets moving it is very hard to stop.  A skateboard is easy.  When you are flying an airplane that is well north of 100,000 pounds at landing, and up to 1 Million pounds like the new Airbus 380, the same rules apply.  If it begins to decend faster than you intend and you don't correct quickly, it builds momentum in a direction you don't want it to go.  Imagine that bus now going down hill and you have to stop it.  It needs a lot more brakes, and the faster it gets going the harder it is to stop.  You can always jump in front of a skateboard and stop it with one foot.

And, oh by the way, brakes on the bus can fail, that is why there are "runaway truck ramps" along steep mountain roads.

You can always treat the skateboard like the bus by correcting quickly and aggressively.  It might not be the most comfortable ride for people who aren't used to it, but is is safe.  That is basically what I was doing.  You can't ever treat the bus like a skateboard or it will simply run you over.

The other reason is that big jets don't just get power like a car or a bus.  If you are fast and let off the gas, it takes several seconds for those big engines to slow down.  On the flip side if you are slow, which is usually more dangerous that being fast and you need to add power, it may not happen for several seconds.

This also might explain a little bit about the Southwest Accident at La Guardia.  We know they got off the path, and instead of acting quickly and decisively to stop the approach and try again they tried to "save it".  That extra half second might have allowed enough momentum to build that the situation became unrecoverable.

So what is the common thread and who are better pilots?

What I have found in 30 years of flying both military and civilian is the exact same thing that I have found in business.  The successful pilots (and business owners) have learned to push the envelope and even go outside of it a little and then live to tell about it. (If you don't know what it means to push the envelope, read the last paragraph and come back.)

More importantly when they live to tell about it, they gained some respect for that corner of the envelope, and they didn't become afraid of it.  That is what separates the great from the good from the average from the marginally safe.  The great took a risk, went over the limit and learned to respect the limit without becoming fearful.  More importantly they keep doing it along different edges of the envelope and continue to build respect for the envelope.  If you have respect you have understanding.  Knowledge of the actual numbers isn't required when you have a true understanding.

If you leave the envelope and don't get understanding, you have to go do it again until you do or you learn to fear the edge instead of respecting the edge.  Fear is a paralyzing emotion which is dangerous in flying and in business.  Doing nothing when you go over the edge will almost always be catastrophic.

How does this apply to business?

The housing market is one of the greatest examples in business.  How many people do you know that used to be "real estate investors"?  If you talk about buying homes to create rentals, the fear mongers will crawl out of every corner in the room and call you on the phone at the same time.

They will tell you horror stories of bad tenants, crashing markets and the like. Instead of respecting the need to prescreen tenants, or do market research and buy right, they tell you to stay away from real estate investing and be afraid.

If you want to start a business, people will tell you about the countless hours you will have to work for free, they'll say things like "four out of five businesses fail in the first year".  Again, fear has taken over their perspective.

When you learn to respect the rules of the game and not fear them, you will find success.  I only said success was simple, I didn't say it was easy.


The Envelope -

The phrase "outside the envelope" comes from charts and graphs that engineers use to plot an aircrafts performance.  Many times these charts look like an envelope back turned at an angle.  

Flying the numbers "inside" the envelope will keep the airplane flying safely in 99.99% of all situations.  Many people never even get close to the minimum or maximum capability any more.  In Flying for example, when I learned to fly as a civilian and again in military pilot training, spins were required.  Spins are outside of the envelope.