With the change to Eastern Daylight Time my morning coffee routine has been horribly affected. When we were on standard time, I was able to show up at my local coffee shop just before 7 a.m., settle in at a table on the patio, and wait just a few minutes for the doors to be unlocked and the coffee to flow.
All that happened in the soft daylight of early morning.
Now, the patio is dark and the mood is somewhat subdued as my peer group of elderly wise men await the opening of our favorite gathering place. Yet we persevere. What else are we going to do with our early morning free time? Coffee is critical.
Some of us are retired, while others are still gainfully employed. One or two are part timers easing their way into retirement rather than going cold turkey. We are doctors and lawyers and elected officials gathered around the table. We’ve got a handful of insurance agents and a realtor or two among us. Both major political parties are represented, as are a couple outliers. Our membership is largely male, but not exclusively by any means.
It’s an interesting group, but it is not entirely unique. There are probably similar groups gathered each morning in your town as well.
Our goal is to simply start the day with a jolt of caffeine accompanied by a spirited conversation and a bit of humor. It usually works out well.
However, there are those moments where a glaring bit of ignorance shines through or a completely insane idea is floated by a member — perhaps with the intent of injecting some spirit into the early morning malaise that can set in amongst residents of a certain age.
Not long ago a lawyer who frequents the patio, a man who travels often and widely, made an observation that struck me hard. He announced that after boarding the aircraft on his last flight to who-knows-where, he looked out his window to see a pilot of the neighboring airplane walking around the airplane, inspecting it with great care.
“He must have been worried about something falling off,” my friend announced with a chuckle. “I guess he didn’t want to be a newspaper headline.”
My table mates laughed and agreed with his assessment. After years of accident-free commercial air travel in the U.S. a recent spate of unfortunate occurrences has convinced them that something is very wrong with aviation. So wrong in fact that even professional pilots now doubt the ability of their aircraft to successfully complete a flight.
Not being particularly shy about sharing my opinion on the topic of aviation I interjected a bit of inside knowledge to the assembled: “That’s called the walk-around or the pre-flight inspection. We do it before every flight.”
My table mates were stunned. “Seriously?” they asked.
“Yes, seriously.” I replied.
We, who the public assumes go boldly into the big blue sky each day, are not nearly as brave or foolhardy as my fellow coffee drinkers might think. Through no fault of their own they truly believe that we simply drive to the airport, board the airplane, fire up the engine, and go. Because that’s how their travel experience works. They walk to the car, jump in and, if it starts, they drive off.
They have no idea if there is a nail in the right front tire. The car’s oil level is a complete mystery. Not one moment of their day is spent considering the amount of water or contaminants that might be lurking in the fuel tank. And the condition of the drive belts under the hood is so far out of mind many of them aren’t even aware if they’re driving behind a series of belts or a single serpentine monster.
It has not occurred to them that these are the very reasons we see cars broken down on the side of the highway so frequently. It’s not a question of bad luck. It’s often no more than poor planning.
And so, when they see a pilot walking around and under the aircraft next to them, the assumption is there must be something wrong with the airplane or the pilot is a cowardly type who is worried the whole thing might fall apart after takeoff.
As a group we have a tendency to believe the lives and pursuits of others closely equate to our own. This, even though it is readily apparent that mountain climbers and librarians live very different lives and harbor wildly divergent levels of risk aversion. In between those two extremes are a wide assortment of people, most of whom live and work under the false assumption that they are normal — as if there is such a thing.
In the wider world this tendency to believe our experiences are universal is interesting. It can even stimulate conversation, as it did for my coffee crowd.
Yet in aviation, that comforting belief that our thoughts and actions are just as they should be, regardless of widely disseminated information to the contrary, can be truly dangerous.
Every CFI has been told repeatedly to present an example to our students and clients that establishes solid, safety-related behaviors. Use the checklist. Do a thorough pre-flight inspection. Brief passengers on how to fasten and unfasten their seatbelts and shoulder harnesses. Perform clearing turns before initiating maneuvers. And so on.
Yet CFIs are human beings and human beings have a nasty habit of looking for shortcuts. They get complacent. They overestimate their abilities. They have a tendency to skip steps perceived as being unimportant or unnecessarily repetitive.
So, with all this in mind, I asked my table mates “wouldn’t you rather fly with a pilot who took the time to inspect the airplane to make sure the gear locks were out? The fuel is at the level and of the type needed for the flight? That no damage is evident on the wings or tail from a bird strike nobody noticed on the last flight?”
They all agreed that was probably a good idea. The fact that they’d never seen a walk-around inspection before wasn’t an indication of a worried pilot. It is an indication of an activity they aren’t a part of being performed by a pro who didn’t skip the repetitive tasks or accept the condition of their aircraft on blind faith.
That’s exactly the kind of pilot I want to fly with. That’s the sort of CFI I’ve always tried to be too.
I would hope all of us, at any certification level, adopt that same level of professionalism and care.
