What You Care About May Predict If You'll Crash

[canwhitewolf]

Bill Rhodes is a philosopher who studies moral psychology. He's also a pilot who's leading a research study that's turned up some striking data on why some pilots are more likely to wreck airplanes than others. It turns out what you care about may be more important than what you know or how skilled you are in the cockpit

http://www.avweb.com/podcast/podcast/Bi ... ml?kw=self

[CpnCrunch]

And here is a text version:

http://www.generalaviationnews.com/?p=24573

I think everything he says is spot on. I wonder how many fatal accidents could have been avoided if the pilot wasn't in such a hurry and had proper humility?

[into the blue]

While I agree fully with everything that Bill Rhodes says, teaching the proper attitudes and "molding" people according to a set of ideals is extremely difficult. Guess how much respect a person with a macho/cowboy attiude has towards a safety-conscious person? Practically nil. Now imagine if that sensible person starts telling the cowboy to smarten up...Will the cowboy listen? Same story with other types of dangerous attitudes. You don't need to get into an airplane with someone to experience this, just remember the last time you drove your buddies somewhere. If you follow all the rules, don't speed, come to a stop before a yellow light instead of jamming the throttle pedal to the floor, etc., etc., it will only be a couple of minutes before someone starts making comments like "come on, man, you can go faster - we might be late", "come on, man, you could've beaten that red light", "come on, man, you don't have to yeild to that guy", an so on. I realized a long time ago that, in this type of situations, explaining your point will rarely make them change their mind. You usually just hear a "pfffff" in response.

[. ._]

I say take the Cat Driver approach which has worked for him over many, many years.

When someone is pushing you to do something unsafe, say it loud and proud- "@#$! YOU!" (I'm paraphrasing there.)

I'm sure he's never said those nasty words.

But seriously, someone on here once said a magical phrase which stuck with me.

"Are the decisions I'm making getting in the way of me drinking beer?"

Or something like that. Very wise. It applies to all aspects of aviation... and life.

-istp

[AEROBAT]

While I agree fully with everything that Bill Rhodes says, teaching the proper attitudes and "molding" people according to a set of ideals is extremely difficult. Guess how much respect a person with a macho/cowboy attiude has towards a safety-conscious person? Practically nil. Now imagine if that sensible person starts telling the cowboy to smarten up...Will the cowboy listen? Same story with other types of dangerous attitudes. You don't need to get into an airplane with someone to experience this, just remember the last time you drove your buddies somewhere. If you follow all the rules, don't speed, come to a stop before a yellow light instead of jamming the throttle pedal to the floor, etc., etc., it will only be a couple of minutes before someone starts making comments like "come on, man, you can go faster - we might be late", "come on, man, you could've beaten that red light", "come on, man, you don't have to yeild to that guy", an so on. I realized a long time ago that, in this type of situations, explaining your point will rarely make them change their mind. You usually just hear a "pfffff" in response.

Interesting audio.

You are right, I cannot see how you can "teach" a different attitude to behaviour. As far as what you care about predicting if you will crash I believe that is true. When I am going to carry a passenger I have noticed I am a lot fussier during the pre-flight than if I was going up by myself. I know people will say that isn't logical but the last thing I want to see is me being responsible for injuring someone. The same goes if I am flying a borrowed or rental plane. I want to bring it back in one piece.

[Geko]

So what your saying is AEROBAT is not allowed to have his own plane and fly it by himself.

[AEROBAT]

There are a few who would agree with you

[Liquid Charlie]

I agree what he says is true but he isn't saying anything we don't already know or has been said before -- I don't quite understand why people think this is a revelation.

[Hedley]

I don't quite understand why people think this is a revelation

+1

[Guido]

I agree what he says is true but he isn't saying anything we don't already know or has been said before -- I don't quite understand why people think this is a revelation.

I don't think it's so much a revelation as a confirmation of the intuitive feeling that most of us have already... there are some folks out there who just shouldn't be flying. The question will be how do we either a) keep them out of a cockpit or b) how do we re-train their attitudes before they kill people...
It's nice to see confirmation of something that seems common sense.

[x-wind]

Nothing new.

As to the "Come on man you could've" ... take the advice of associating with a different crowd. You don't respect yourself if you develop bad habits because of influence like that. Leadership skills are important in aviation.

[loopa]

The crowd a pilot hangs out with is a key component to that pilot’s development. If he gets in with the right crowd, the more experienced pilots can bring him up right and call him on it when he does something risky. “But if he gets in with a bunch of yahoos who don’t preflight…,” Rhodes said.

A big plus 1. This should also be factored into the jobs you accept and turn down as well. You want to place yourself in an environment where you can use your experience towards the job description, but also learn a thing or two. This applies to everything, and especially in the flight instructing field. If you're learning from a CFI who hasn't him/herself been very experienced, you're now learning from both your and his/her mistakes. While working for an experienced CFI would lead to many things being called upon, and fixed right away.

I've had experience with both sides of the coin working with very inexperienced CFI's, and now a very experienced CFI. And boy what a difference!

I will attest to the fact that the "crowd" you hang around has a big influence in how you shape up in your career, and am glad that I've had experience working for both types of leaders, making me appreciate and be grateful about my current situation so much more!


Great post canwhite and for all you guys in flight training, re-read this philosophy until it's memorized. It will help you big time!