Part One

A Report for the Education and Training Committee

Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators

19 December 2002, Michigan, USA

Daniel Fonseca, 3^rd J. N. Somers Scholar

You will probably be reading this because for you, flying already holds a considerable fascination. You may be reading this with the aim of helping a friend with their flying. Or you may be reading this because for you it is time to finally do what has been in your heart throughout your life and finally take the big step by embarking on the very demanding course that you hope will allow you to fly for a living. Whatever the reasons for reading this, you are already halfway to achieving your goal, for it is clear that you have a great motivation.

You probably also have the ability to seek ways to properly fulfill the desire to fly and without a doubt the more systematic and complete you can make the process the better the results will be. Preparation at every stage and a willingness to review plans, events and contingencies are very important, especially when the options available do not necessarily look attractive. Sometimes, in the cinema, pilots are portrayed as being courageous and daring. This is true in the sense that one has to be courageous and daring to take the risk of going on this type of very demanding training in order to achieve one’s dream. In the flying sense, what is probably more important is the ability to say no when the conditions are unsafe, and to always proceed with great caution or to not proceed at all. A safe attitude is the best so the motivation should be one towards safety and high standards, everything else thereafter falling into its place by itself.

Apart from the physical preparation required before leaving home in terms of documentation, clothes, cash and the like there is one very big and important item that you must not leave without. This is the realisation that what you are about to do is not going to be a short and a fast thing. You will most likely be burning with desire to go out there and prove that you can do it, and you are likely to be looking forward to the experience. However, every person who has embarked on a course like this whom this author has been privileged to speak to has never been able to say that it was plain sailing all along. There are times during the course when one gets a little depressed, and for what is typically a 14-month saga of full-time effort there are quite a few challenges and situations that can create such emotions. The knowledge that these will occur is the first step towards dealing with them constructively and positively, and a cheerful attitude when the going gets tough is also very useful.

The other important thing to take with you is the knowledge that you will always have in the fullness of time people around you on the course who are, believe it or not, experiencing the same exact feelings and challenges that you are, and great comfort can be found with them. When situations seem tough and you feel solitary you must deal with them courageously and with stamina. Once you do become self-sufficient and self-reliant you will be able to derive even more strength from those around you. Your family and friends back at home are there for support and advice and will always be there when you go back. You are never really alone on your journey, but it is still you who must walk on the long path all the way to where you want to go.

Depending on where your chosen school is, the trip there could be a short car journey of a few minutes to a trip halfway around the globe on the type of jet you may be hoping to fly one day. Whether you have just popped into the neighbouring town where the training school is or you are struggling to stay awake after travelling across many time zones and having been up for 20 hours, things will feel and look different because the place and the people will be new. Since you also know how long the course is going to be, the very real feeling of loneliness can take hold but this is only natural and must be allowed to run its course. This author found that trying to push the feeling away only made it worse. The important thing is to trust that the system that has successfully worked all your life will kick straight into action and sort everything out in its own time, but be well aware that it will take time.

Sometimes this loneliness can be accompanied by a feeling of uncertainty as to the final outcome of the course. The logic and thinking that you applied back in the comfort and clarity of your home while planning out your future can at these times seem like a little boy’s fairy tale dream in the midst of civil war. The important thing is that although these feelings are real and reflect the way your mind visualises the situation, it will only be a matter of time before you are back into the swing of things. The time this takes depends on how different the place you go to is compared to what you have seen before, what the people around you are like and what you are like with them. This is probably why airline pilots in charge of selecting potential trainees want to see how much travelling, team activities, sports and that sort of thing you have done. Even if you have not had the chance to do a lot of personal exploration, the feelings will diminish and disappear once your mind has fully adapted to the new environment and it is fully engaged in the task. Again, the driver behind this process is the strong motivation to get to where you want to go.

The most important thing to do in the first few days and weeks is to really get to know your course-mates, especially those that you feel you can identify with. It is human nature to form groups and although your mind and heart may be at home, you have to let yourself mould into the group because here you will find your closest friends whom you will be able to confide in when nobody else will understand what is happening to you. These are the friends that you will most likely trust for the rest of your life too.

One day sometime into the course, you will wake up and feel truly happy with your colleagues and your environment and you will smile without even realising it. This is the moment when you are once again back to 100% of your ability. This result cannot be hurried along and takes a different amount of time for different people, so just be patient until you feel your system is finally there. You might reflect on the fact that the process took this or that amount of time, or that this or that still needs to happen, but now all the energy that your brain was using trying to get used to the place can now be devoted to what you are really there to do. That is of course, to work very hard and also to have the time of your life with a great bunch of people!

Many people sometimes look down at Ground School as a long and drawn out affair that is something that "has to be done". Actually, it is a long and extensive course of study in its own right, and the airlines certainly require it as one of many other things before they can even look at your CV. People who have done first degrees at University sometimes have trouble coping with the workload of doing 14 separate subjects in what is a short space of time. For some it is much more work than anything they had ever done before. After all, in the Ground School you will learn a lot of the background knowledge that you will use throughout your professional life. For this reason, it is important to look at Ground School as background preparation, to relate it to the flying that professional pilots do, and possibly to try and find an area of particular interest for yourself which you may pursue at a later date so as to become a better pilot and keep yourself in touch with the latest thinking in the industry. As far as the current course is concerned you will obtain your "ATPL Theory", but further study will be an on-going theme throughout your career; whether as part of a type conversion course at the airline or as part of your own study at home.

The nice thing about Ground School is that it takes place over an extended period of time. It may not seem like it when you are working flat out in the days before an exam, but in actual fact you are working on your concepts and ideas every day as you apply them, sometimes unknowingly, to the flying that you do. Before you know it, the concepts that you may have struggled with on day one now seem simple, straightforward and so much a part of you that you hardly think about them.

When it comes to the actual ground exams, apart from a few butterflies doing their pre-flight checks in your stomach, you will almost certainly have a precious advantage that you almost never have with flying unless you are still on the ground planning a flight, and that is time. In the experience of this author and those of his colleagues with respect to the JAA ATPL Theory Exams, it was possible to finish every exam with at least 20 minutes to spare. This golden time was sometimes even longer and ran up to an hour in some cases. Instead of handing your paper over, hurrying out of the room and heading for the coffee machine, you can always close your eyes for a few minutes and think of something else. Refreshed, you can then calmly review your answers and hold a leisurely symposium with yourself on their suitability to the question posed. You have the precious commodity of double-checking your work in a relatively stress-free environment and you must make the most of this. You may of course feel confident with all your answers and then your review will be a good exercise, but sometimes you find a gross error that you would be kicking yourself for if somebody remarked about it later in the post-exam exhortations.

When the results come back from the Authority it will always be a slightly nervous day, since no matter how you feel you have done there is always a desire to know for sure. There are times when you or somebody on the course does not feel confident and it is perhaps a good idea to pick up your results during a quiet period in the afternoon. If you have not quite made the grade then the courage that you show at this stage is what is going to make you a great pilot one day. You must carefully analyse what went wrong, decide what you need to do next, and finally you must work twice as hard to achieve it because the course workload will not obligingly ease up so you can catch up. Many people find that the workload of studying for a re-sit, together with the workload for the new set of exams coming up, plus the challenge of flying is more than they can handle comfortably. It is at times like these that you really start to earn your licence.

Many instructors say that no matter how good your ground school results are, the flying is "where it’s at". Of all the things that you do on the course, the one activity that defines you more strongly than almost everything else will be your attitude and performance on the flying side. Here you are using inter-personal skills, developing your management ability, learning to be objective and clear-headed under pressure, learning to be patient and dealing with the inevitable delays and hardships whilst remaining positive, cheerful and focused. When sponsors and potential customer airlines visit a flying school they always look very carefully at how the students behave when preparing to fly. The report that the school writes at the end of the course has a major section on flying ability and personal attitude. Your instructor will sooner or later have to make an assessment of your ability to fly. At the end of the day, the ability to be "Pilot In Command" in a team environment is being developed and assessed.

An instructor once said that no matter what is happening at home, with your personal life or with other situations, the minute you step outside to go flying you must leave all your worries behind and concentrate 100% on flying. If you cannot do this, then you should not go flying. The reason for it is that If you do take your personal "luggage" with you then the mental and physical capacity you can devote to flying is reduced. At best you will perform below your true capabilities, and at worst you could have a serious accident involving you and sometimes other people. It is initially difficult to achieve this detachment but it is possible with practise, and it is a good idea to make up a personal mental checklist to ensure that you are truly fit to fly. A secondary way of looking at it, after the safety perspective, is that a flying hour is expensive and you want to make the most of each one.

Sometimes the weather does not cooperate at all and you are grounded for weeks on end. This is naturally frustrating because you are loosing all your hard-earned proficiency and your highly developed skill is fading away. You walk around the school looking at the posters of your aircraft’s instrument panel and you feel so out of touch with it all that you begin to wonder if you can remember what everything does. The fact is that you probably are very much out of touch and it would be unsafe, if the weather were to magically clear up, to jump straight into the plane and do your next solo trip without first reviewing what you have previously learnt. Some people keep a little diary or personal account of each flight with comments about things they need to remember next time or things that caught them out. They can read this before a flight to re-set themselves in the picture of where they have been, where they are and where they are going, thus getting more benefit from each expensive flying hour.

Sitting on the ground is not altogether a bad thing if you are prepared to adapt to it. This can be the perfect time to have a good laugh in the crew lounge with colleagues and instructors and in general exchange tips, advice and stories about flying and other things. If the group is bubbly and there is a good sense of humour then time will fly by and will in fact be very enjoyable. This will also strengthen the bonds in the group, which is something that is very important when the going gets tough and everyone needs to pull together in the same direction and help each other out.

Sometimes there will be things outside your control that are limiting your progress, and you end up suffering because you are not advancing towards your goal. Instead of worrying about progress and complaining about it, carefully think about the situation and try to understand it well. Then think constructively about what could realistically be done to improve it and suggest your ideas to the people that might be able to effect a small change here and there. However, do ensure you devote your strictly limited energy to what you can change and improve through your own actions. For much of the time during the course this will be your own flying: use spare moments to rehearse your checks, your instrument call outs during a procedural approach or remind yourself of the critical speeds for the aircraft you are flying. This will occupy your mind constructively and you will then be ready to swing into action when the circumstances are right and make the most of what could be a narrow window of opportunity; even when others who might have been throwing their arms up in frustration are not ready to go. Your example might be very useful to them too if they happen to be receptive to it.

Somebody once said that a flying test is just another flight conducted in the same professional and thorough manner that every other flight you have ever done before was conducted. It should be a thoroughly routine affair in which the only real difference is that there is a new person next to you in the aircraft who maybe is not as talkative as usual and sometimes makes notes on a clipboard. Just as on any other day, nothing new or fancy should be done to try and impress or please your new passenger on this day.

In reality, a flying test can be demanding psychologically, emotionally and physically. You will most likely think in a strange and abbreviated new way unless you are quite experienced and comfortable with this sort of thing already. The knowledge that it is also an important milestone in your training can at times mostly hinder rather than encourage clear thinking; and your passenger for the day may be wearing four gold bars which can make him or her look rather distinguished, authoritative and possibly even intimidating. In other words, a certain proportion of your brain power is being devoted to worrying about the test, its outcome and its ramifications.

This is where self-discipline together with a very good school and an excellent instructor are your best allies. The self-discipline will get you to continuously study your flying experience carefully every day and focus your mind as much as possible on the test only. The very good school will provide an atmosphere of learning and support. The excellent instructor, with a clear and in-depth knowledge of what the test will entail, will have guided you through the correct way of thinking, the drills and the flight discipline that you need so that you present yourself for the test with very strong habit patterns which have been carefully and expertly crafted. These very strong patterns will be your backbone through the test and the more closely you can follow them, the more at home you will feel and the more successful you are likely to be since your capacity for clear thinking is maximised. With preparation like this, the outcome is usually positive because it will have been ensured that not only do you meet the test standard, but actually exceed them by a considerable margin.

When you do very well in a test and you are very happy, you must share this experience with others because it will give them priceless tips and hints which have been earned through lots of effort on your part. However, you must be quite careful that your listeners do not perceive this as showing off or as a message of implied hierarchy or superiority. On the other hand, if you do not pass or just do not do as well as your friends on the course, chew it over by yourself for however long is necessary before talking about it with other people. There is nothing wrong with being a recluse for one or two nights, your true friends will understand, and those that do not do so immediately (possibly because they have not had the bad luck you did) will understand when it is their turn sometime in the future. Once you are clear about what happened, you must then go and talk things over with friends, be they course-mates, instructors, family or even your pet fish. By speaking out your thoughts you can crystalise them and if this is done after some serious time alone then great progress can be made to meeting the challenge you face because now you have something solid to work on.

When a friend does very well, you have to find out what it was that made them do so well and feed their fire, because this is how you can cultivate the qualities both in your friends and in yourself that will result in success in the big and important licensing tests with the gentlemen from the CAA. As always, when a friend does not do well, never seek to say a superficial remark or say how well you did and how relieved you feel about having passed yourself. Instead give examples of successful outcomes, rubbishy and disappointing outcomes, indifferent outcomes, cases of experienced airline pilots having a bad day or anything you can think of that will add perspective to what has just happened to this person who also wants to be a professional pilot.

A flying test can seem surprisingly easy in retrospect for those who pass it first time because unless conscious thought is made of all the work that went into it, the immediate memory surrounding the test can be one of a rather sleepless night followed by a twitchy day and 2 hours of flying where the general thought process is: "This is OK". For those who are unfortunate and do not pass, a flying test is all of the above followed by the bad news from the examiner, acute disappointment, shock, a heartbreaking loss of face with the senior staff members who write the final school report, perceived negative peer pressure, a parade of self-denial which can shake a career path to its foundations and feelings of incompetence. This can last for the next few days if the weather is good and a re-test can be attempted again promptly, or for the next few weeks if the weather is bad and one cannot get on the horse and ride again immediately. Picking oneself up from this one is tough even with the most supportive of friends and the last thing you want to do to your friend if he or she is in this situation is step about like nothing has happened. Always look at your friend in the eye, be very sensitive and say the truth based on facts, because unless you have been in that situation it is really very difficult to understand how your friend feels. Objectiveness, clarity and a compassionate approach are what will help your friend more than anything else.

A course of this nature is challenging for each person in different ways. Whatever it is that happens to be the most challenging for you, the most important thing is to keep working away at it in a persistent, cheerful and constructive manner. When you reach the top of the hill you have been climbing you will get a great feeling of happiness and pride because now you can see some of the beautiful landscape laid out before you. Then, after catching your breath you realise that there is a hill, which borders on being a mountain, in the distance and this is the next challenge for you. In the far distance you manage to discern even bigger and more spectacular mountains, all of them even taller than the one in front of you, and all very far away such that they are given a blue hue by the atmosphere. This constant personal challenge together with the rich landscape it provides are the beauties and rewards of this profession and make all the effort worthwhile a thousand times over.

Good luck and happy landings!

Part 2