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Airline Command Discussion group
Ensure you check out the INDEX over there to the right in the HOME section to view all the posted articles (new stuff is continually added).
You need to relax and chill out sometimes – especially if you’re suffering the grind of the training sausage machine. So here are a few funny videos and web pages.
If you know of any others, add the web page or link in the COMMENTS below.
NOTE: This diatribe is a little off topic – but I think every aviator should revisit the thoughts expressed here every so often to have a much needed reality check - especially TRAINERS!
Why did you get into aviation in first place?
Was it for the sheer joy and thrill of flying? Did you make model aircraft as a kid, join the Air Cadets, do any crappy job on your school holidays just so you could scrape together the “astronomical fortune” to afford a few flying lessons? Did you hang out at airfields just so you could watch airplanes take off and land?
Did you have your head well and truly in the clouds?
Almost everyone I know of in this fickle aviation game initially got into it because they WANTED to. There were no other options. Flying was their motivation, their goal, their burning desire.
Can you remember what it was like when you first soloed? Your first cross country navigation exercise? Your first aviation job (well maybe that one is not a pleasant memory – but it was a stepping stone towards your future goal(s), right)?
Unfortunately, a lot of pilots in today’s business, economic driven Aviation Industry have forgotten why they got into aviation in the first place. Airline Aviation especially can become “sterile”, passionless, boring, tedious – it can become just another job, just another pay check to pay the bills and keep the family in the luxury (or poverty) they are accustomed to.
This way of thinking is entirely up to you. You do have a choice about whether you feel good about your job (or more correctly, your profession) or not.
I choose to enjoy every flight I go aloft on. I still look forward to going flying, the challenges and skills, the joy of aviation. I still smile, I still feel good about myself and I take pride in being a professional, safe and proficient aviator.
So if you find yourself getting stressed out, pissed off, hassled, just RELAX, SMILE, ENJOY yourself. You’ll be less stressed out and will learn better.
TRAINERS TAKE NOTE!!!
As a further reminder of how much fun flying can be check out The Inner Art Of Airmanship and Great Aviation Quotes (both by Dave English).
You really do need to have a reality check every once in a while.
This is the fifth of a series of articles which will look at Command Judgement and Decision Making. (Part 4 – Perception) is here.
Each part needs to be read in the sequential order presented, as this is the way I believe you mentally go about using your judgement to make a decision. There is no point in reading Part 5 before Part 4.
Recognition
The story so far…
We sense a massive amount of a variety of inputs using both our near and far senses. These sensory inputs are “filtered” by our brains, usually entirely unconsciously, to prevent sensory overload. This filtering process goes through two stages. The first is our “physiological sensory filter” where the raw data is filtered by our sensory system. The second (and possibly more important due to the potential to introduce errors into the Judgement and Decision Making process) is our “perception filter” where we view the world as we think it is (perceived reality) and not as it actually is (reality).
(Click on...you know what to do).
The next step in the Judgment chain is to RECOGNISE, have an awareness of, or a realisation, that this sensed information is relevant, important and something that we should or need to take notice of. Sounds a bit like Situational Awareness doesn’t it?
As we discussed in Recognise & React, without recognition there can be no reaction. If you do not recognise that the incoming sensory information is relevant, then the Judgement and Decision Making process ends right there, and you are usually quite oblivious that you have missed an important fact or significant sign.
Remember that you can only make accurate and correct decisions with accurate and correct information. Garbage In – Garbage Out. This “perceived” information is what you use your Judgement on to arrive at a decision.
Improving Recognition
That’s all well and good – but how do you improve your recognition skills?
Recognise & React has some pointers on how to increase and improve your situational recognition skills. So have a read of that article.
Experience is also a big factor in being able to recognise pointers that a particular situation is developing. Experience is one of the biggest differences between Experts and Novices. Experts have a much larger and more richly developed “knowledge bank” of past experiences and situations (both personal and through discussing things with others) to draw upon and so are normally able to spot impending problems or situations well before a Novice. Usually Experts are able to say to themselves “I’ve seen this before…and this is what I need to do to deal with it”. If it is a problem situation they may even be able to think “I’ve seen these signs developing before…before it gets any worse I’m going to do this…” The really good Experts are…well expert…at recognising developing situations and being proactive to sort any problems out early before they increase in scope to major hassles.
You are most likely in the category of “Novice Captain” and you may miss recognising things that your Training Captain will easily spot while under training. To build up your individual “knowledge bank” and vicariously increase your personal experience, talk now with your current Captains, discuss scenarios with your peers and play out “what if…” scenarios to their logical conclusion. Try to focus on the first warning signs that you can recognise that something is occurring.
Like they say “forewarned is forearmed”. The earlier that you are able to recognise a situation, the more likely and more successfully you will react to and resolve it.
Recognition of signs or a situation is probably the second conscious step in the whole Judgement and Decision Making process (after Perception). What you do after you have recognised a developing situation is the subject of further riveting articles – so stay tuned (we’ll get there eventually!)
Judgement and Decision Making (Part 6 – Define The Problem)
This is only MY attempt at analysing Judgement and Decision Making – I’m just a professional aviator, not a psychologist so my thoughts may not conform with academia, but it is based on a real pilot’s perspective. What would you rather have; a psychologist explaining aviation or an aviator explaining psychology?
I welcome any feedback about this article. Please add YOUR pilot input (or if any psychologists read this, your thoughts) by using the COMMENTS link below.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just transfer all your First Officer experience straight into the Left Seat and then you wouldn’t need any Command Training?
Nice thought, but it doesn’t happen that way!
Command requires a different skill set from those that you are currently employing as a First Officer. Some skills are directly transferable (e.g. flying the aircraft) and others will have to be learnt or refined to suit the new requirements of Command (e.g. Leadership).
So how can you build up your Command “Experience” while you are serving your apprenticeship in the Right Seat?
It’s pretty easy(?). You’ve got to learn to teach yourself or, in other words, conduct Self Directed Learning. You can gain a lot of experience through learning from others, and more specifically the Captains you are currently flying with. If you are really lucky you can get yourself a mentor to guide you as you learn the ropes.
It has been said that "experience is the best teacher". Sometimes, the price of experience is too dear. It is seldom sufficient and it always takes too long to accumulate. Experience can be gained much faster and more efficiently if it is gleaned deliberately through training. Experience is a very valuable and important asset that can form a vital component of a thorough knowledge base. Whether acquired personally or vicariously from others, it can be a powerful weapon in the arsenal of wisdom. (Richard S. Jensen - Pilot Judgement and Crew Resource Management)
To add to that quote:
- Learn from the mistakes of others - you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
- Experience is something you get just after you actually need it.
Start building your Command “Experience” early in your career as an F/O. Then when you come to do your Command Course for real it will seem “easy”.
This is the third of a series of articles which will look at Command Judgement and Decision Making. (Part 2 - Senses is here).
Each part needs to be read in the sequential order presented, as this is the way I believe you mentally go about using your judgement to make a decision. There is no point in reading Part 3 before Part 2.
Sense Filters
Our senses (both the “Far Senses” and the “Near Senses”) continually bombard our brain with massive quantities of sensory information.
Vision provides about 80% of our sensory input and our eyes are capable of sending to the brain about 1,000,000,000 messages every second. Add to this the auditory information that you receive from hearing and taste, smells, tactile information, inputs from your vestibular system and the other senses. It all adds up to a vast amount of information that you are capable of receiving. This is occurring all the time, every second of your life.
(Click on the image for a larger view.)
So how do we as pilot’s (and humans) process this massive amount of sensory information? The short answer is that we don’t. Your brain can only handle a finite amount of informational processing and it does this by “filtering” out some of the sensory inputs.
What Do You Sense?
I’m guessing that you’re sitting at home reading this on a computer screen. Are you aware of how much pressure is being sensed by your butt as you sit there reading, the position of your left elbow joint, the touch on your skin of your clothes, the temperature and breeze from the air conditioner, your wife asking you to mow the lawn (well, this one is probably best described as selective hearing), traffic noise from outside your study, the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe, the beating of your heart? All of these things are being sensed but you don’t notice them until you force yourself to pay attention to them. How many things in your room can you “see” while you are focussed on reading this blog? You are most likely using your acute central vision to read individual or groups of words in the text and disregarding or “filtering” out your peripheral vision as you concentrate your attention on the reading and comprehension task of this particularly intellectually stimulating diatribe.
The same thing happens whenever you strap your bum to an aircraft and go flying. How often do you consciously register the airflow noise going over the cockpit or smell the individual odour of your particular aircraft’s cockpit? Do you consciously detect the changes in G whenever you do a turn or notice how much pressure is being applied by your right foot? Do you hear the avionics fan(s) whirring in the background or the air flow noise of the air conditioning system? All these things are occurring around you and you are sensing them, but your brain is “filtering” much of these sensory inputs so that you don’t become over-stimulated and overwhelmed.
How It Works
At this “pre-attentive”, filtering stage of sensory data gathering, the raw data is coarsely processed. It is normally very rapid, automatic and occurs without conscious thought. The information is only retained for a fraction of a second and is then lost if the information is not determined to be important – it gets rapidly replaced by other raw data sensory inputs. The raw data is only very basically and coarsely analysed (your vision sense might be unconsciously aware of a small, relatively stationary, white blob out of the corner of your eye, in the periphery of vision – but the meaning of that white blob is unknown). The raw data sensory input has a very large capacity, for example, it can process the entire visual field simultaneously. So if your vision sense “detects” the white blob, but you determine unconsciously and automatically that it is not important (and this occurs rapidly) and thus do not process the information further (and this occurs at a far slower rate and requires conscious thought) you will in effect “forget” about the white blob. The raw data white blob sensory information will be replaced by other raw data and be filtered out of your system.
Filter Effects
What you eventually filter out is to a certain extent learned or gained through experience. You are able to detect your flight’s call sign in amongst the ATC radio chatter while simultaneously conducting a conversation with the other pilot. This is relatively simple for an experienced aviator as you have learned to do this over many years, but for someone else not familiar with aviation radio calls, all the chatter might just be total gibberish and they would be unable to isolate the important stuff (your call sign and the associated message). When the airflow noise over the cockpit is at a “normal” level you don’t even register the sound, but if it became louder (increasing IAS) or quieter (decreasing IAS) you might then start paying attention to it – it has become “unfiltered” and something that you should pay attention to.
What is eventually filtered out is also affected by your emotional (mental) and physical state. Obviously if you are affected by drugs (and these may be normal over the counter drugs if you’re self medicating for a cold or a headache for instance), this can affect your cognitive processing and alter how much sensory information is detected and then subsequently “filtered”. Your emotional state can also influence this filtration. If you are happy, angry, sad, bored or depressed, what gets filtered can be different from other emotional states. The same can occur if you are physically fatigued or tired or are suffering from sleep loss (does this seem familiar to those of you doing Long Haul flights?!).
This sensory “filtering” process is a very individual thing and varies between different pilots, even though they may receive exactly the same “raw data”.
Summary
To exercise good judgement and arrive at a good decision requires good information. We get that information from our senses (both Far and Near), but the raw data is heavily, automatically and unconsciously “filtered” so that we do not suffer from sensory over-load. It is only retained for a fraction of a second and if not important is rapidly replaced by other sensory raw data.
What you do with this sensory raw data is the subject of further articles – so stay tuned.
Judgement & Decision Making (Part 4 - Perception).
This is only MY attempt at analysing Judgement and Decision Making – I’m just a professional aviator, not a psychologist so my thoughts may not conform with academia, but it is based on a real pilot’s perspective. What would you rather have; a psychologist explaining aviation or an aviator explaining psychology?
I welcome any feedback about this article. Please add YOUR pilot input (or if any psychologists read this, your thoughts) by using the COMMENTS link below.
To be an effective Captain you need to be able to communicate effectively. You have to be able to transfer your thoughts, ideas, plans, decisions and requirements to the other members of your team. You will also have to absorb and understand thoughts, ideas, plans, decisions and requirements from other people. Communication is a two way thing.
To help understand how to effectively communicate we’ll look at a basic model of the communication process.
Message Preparation takes place. This message contains the idea, knowledge, goal, decision, information, intention or opinion. If the message sender is unable to formulate a sensible, coherent and understandable message the remainder of the communication process is useless (GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out).
A Transmitter sends the message. This transmitter may be you or another person, a document or publication, an ATC radio message, electronic (ACARS or FMS via a keyboard or MCP/FCU) or a visual marshalling signal.
The transmitter Encodes the message and then sends it. The encoding may take the form of the English language (verbal), it might be an accepted visual signal, PFD word or symbol, correct radio phraseology or written words, usually in a very specific technical aviation jargon in our particular Command case.
The Message Transmission occurs via some sort of Medium. This may be via sound if you are talking face to face with someone, electrical and sound if receiving a radio call via a headset or speaker, purely electrical if using the FMS or visual if looking at a PFD, person or book.
A Receiver intercepts the message. This receiver, like the transmitter, can be another person (the usual case) or may be electronic (e.g. ACARS, a computer or the FMS).
The receiver then Decodes the message. The decoding is the opposite of encoding. Effective decoding relies on the transmitter and receiver using the same encode/decode methodology, language and conventions.
After decoding the receiver carries out Message Interpretation. This is NOT the same as understanding the Transmitter’s intended message; Interpretation is the individual receiver’s perception of the received message (which may or may not be correct).
Effective communication only takes place if after decoding and interpreting, the receiver actually Understands the transmitter’s message. Ineffective communication can take place from the transmitter’s message preparation, through any other part of the Basic Communication Model to the receiver’s message interpretation.
(Click on the images for a larger view).
This is the very basic Communication Model that all forms of communication follow. But, as we have seen communication is a dialogue, a two way process.
Both the transmitter and the receiver are actually combined Transmitter/Receivers and messages are being sent simultaneously in both directions providing Feedback to both the primary transmitter and the primary receiver. This feedback is very important as it one way for the transmitter to ensure that the message has been received, decoded correctly, interpreted correctly and so understood effectively. The intention of the message has been properly conveyed from the transmitter to the receiver.
If you cannot get your message understood effectively you have failed at the communication process. That failure can occur at any stage from the message preparation, transmit, encode, message transmission via the medium, reception, decode and message understanding. The feedback mechanism provides one method for the transmitter to ensure that the message is received and correctly understood.
The communication process is further complicated by Noise. Noise is anything that distorts the message. It can distort or interfere with the transfer of information at any stage from Message Preparation to Message Interpretation and during Feedback. Noise is usually thought of when considering sound, but for the purposes of our discussion it is the interference with any of the different Mediums of communication. For instance, you may not be able to adequately read the PFD or a document if it is bathed in bright sunlight or the display or words are printed incorrectly or illegibly.
By understanding the Basic Communication Model you will be more aware of where the act of communication can potentially breakdown or be degraded. Communication is an essential skill that you require as the Captain.
So practice being the best communicator you can be.
Good Captains and good Leaders are good communicators.
