You're A Sucker

[Kolmo]

So it is, literally.

And it's not me who says it, but this guy, who seems to be an USAF instructor during some lecture about security.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zY8tIDSIV8

 

Basically, his lecture can be sumed up in three key points:

 

1. You're a sucker for complacency.

2. Ritual is a trap.

3. And familiarization brings content, and content can kill you.

 

Planification is important, because when there is an emergency aboard it allows you to rapidly reactand look for to a sollution to the problem before you.

Anyway, imagine a brand new emergency, one not previously covered by the Dash-1 pr whatever: you've been trained to quickly react to any kind of situation, you know: "stimulus - react". Well, even your degree of training and familiarization with the airplane, chances are in the 90 - 95% of the cases, your first response to that new emergency will be wrong.

 

It is important to have 4 or 5 alternatives just in case an emergency arises. These alternatives, these ideas, can come from your wingman, from your wingmates or from your ground crew. Thus, it's far better to have as much info as possible from all these individuals, than the capacity and skills to fast-thinking and fast-reacting before a brand new emergency.

Doing so, the first alternative in "your list", will be the right one in the 87-89% of the cases.

 

Regarding complacency every time you think you are the best among the bests, you should and try not to even get close to the aircraft. It's a matter of fact that you are not the best (nobody is), and even the bests, make mistakes: every time you fly, you'll make, at least, one error.

First time you get into the cockpit and stare to all the swithces and buttons you think it's an impossible task to fly that airplane.

But once you've done it 2 or 3 times you'll start to realize itwasn't that hard after all.

And in the next period of time, you won't think it's hard at all, but it's pretty easy.

At the end of this process, there will be a change in your personality, and you'll start thinking you're the one who makes all the decissions aboard the airplane (and that all those are the right ones), and that you're the one who is at total control at all times: you're the one who masters the airplane.

 

Every time you feelthat way, you should better walk away from that airplane, and not to put even a foot in the ladder.

Every 6 months with a given weapons systems, you'll become pretty familiar with it. And that's ok, but beware not to become complacient with it. Try to remember: that weapons system is the one trying to kill you.

 

Finally, regarding rituals, try to get rid of them all once you're into the cockpit: they are killers.

At this point, the instructor explains a little incident he had during his training period flying a T-Bird (T-33), in which he got the knuckles in his left hand broken.

He had a long lasting ritual, in which he used to raise or lower the landing gear lever in a "cool way", fast and hard. Also, he used to switch off the gear warning horn as fast as it appeared. In addition, he used to turn off almost all communications from ATC, leaving alone the controller guiding him to the approach.

One time, during a series of "touch 'n go" he REALLY needed to pass, he received the abort order from the controller when he was almost on final because some other traffic in the approach pattern. In total anger he tried to quickly grip the gear handle so fast than he broke 3 knucles in his left hand.

Later, after cooling down, he realized he wasn't aware of the other traffic because he had most of comms turned off, since it's a pain to try to land with several voices in your headphones.

 

More or less, that's all, I guess.

I find it interesting and unusual to find these kind of docs in youtube.

 

Rgds.

 

P.S. As usual lately, embedding is not working, so I've pasted the whole link under the video.

 

EDIT: Not US Navy Instructor after all, but an USAF one. When I heard "touch 'n go", I inmediately thought about carrier quals, my bad.

Edited April 1, 2009 by Kolmo

[Drakko]

La fundación N.P.S.R valora este hilo como interesante. ​