Learning is about discovery, and adventure and can be very
exciting! To become a pilot a person needs to learn a lot. As we explore each
area of flying, you will learn more and more about your airplane, the world you
fly in and even about yourself, and that is a lot of fun. New doorways and new
opportunities will open as you fly in a world of oceans, mountains, clouds, wind
and rain. Pilots love to learn about flying so each time they fly is an
opportunity to learn more about it.
Your mind is the most important tool you
have. As a pilot you will use your mind in a variety of ways as you fly from
place to place. The mind is like a muscle and just as a bodybuilder can add to
the size of a muscle a person can build up, with exercise their mental
abilities. What are mental abilities? Mental abilities include imagination,
memory, logic, calculation and thought. Using this wonderful tool, your mind,
can be fun as well as useful. Maybe you don’t think you’re very smart.
Perhaps you have heard from others that you are not good at math or reading. But
that is not true. You have a genius in you, everybody does, but you must work on
building up your mental powers and flight training is a good way to exercise
your mind. Flying along at 5000 feet and cruising at 200 miles per hour, the
pilot must have a mind that can keep up with his airplane.
You will find that as you learn to fly, you also have a quick mind for
whatever other tasks you wish to accomplish.
Your mind is like flashlight lighting up wherever you point
it. If you wanted to watch something in a dark room, you would have to leave the
flashlight pointed in the same direction long enough for you to see what was
going on. If the light is very bright, you could see miles away with your
flashlight, but you would still need to learn how to keep your light pointed in
the one spot. This focusing of the light of your mind on one thing is called
Concentration. With practice you can focus your mind on what you are doing and
learn very quickly. You can focus your ears to hear everything someone is
telling you or you can let your mind wander around. When that happens you can
miss something important for you. Another word for Concentration is attention.
If you give your attention to something you will for sure learn more about it
that if you pay no attention to it at all. The choice is always yours: Give your
attention or don’t give your attention but remember that old pilot saying
“Snooze You Lose”
Learning
how to get the Job done
The job of flying is made up of smaller jobs called tasks. A pilot’s task will change constantly during a flight. Control of your aircraft, flight planning, and the job of communicating are all tasks that a pilot must accomplish to complete a safe and fun flight. Each task requires skill and knowledge that you will develop in your Flight Sim training, As each small task is mastered you become ready for the next job you must do.
It may take a short time or a long time to understand
something. Each person learns differently. Using your concentration and your
understanding you can complete each small job you are given. One more thing you
will need is time. You will find things will take time and practice, which
brings us to the next subject a pilot, needs to learn about.
Learning
Patience
Do you get mad if things don’t go your way? Do you get
frustrated if you can’t do something you want to right away? Chances are you
need to learn patience. Patience is something very important in life but
especially important if you are trying to learn something for the first time
like flying. Having patience means you don’t get upset and give up if things
do not go as quickly or as well as you think they should. There is a lot to
learn in flying and some of these things, you may find difficult at first to
learn, maybe more difficult than you think it should be. Don’t let your
frustration stop you. By taking your time, asking questions and with careful
practice, you can learn anything. If you let anger or frustration stop you, your
learning days are over and maybe even your flying days. Impatience, the opposite
of patience is a pilot’s enemy and has caused many accidents. Why not learn to
be patient with yourself and others right now! .
Learning
How to Communicate
Communication is the art of message sending. We learn to send messages even as a baby when we cried to let our parents know we needed something. Later we learn not only to form words to speak but also can understand when other people speak to us. This is called Communication and without it what a sad world it would be. We could not tell anybody anything and nobody could tell us anything. When people do not understand each other conflicts come about. As a pilot then, you must learn to communicate well. You must get your message across to somebody and you must understand what they said to you. To prevent aviation accidents from happening, we learn to speak well and to listen well. Sometimes what seems to be a really big problem is just a misunderstanding, which means that somebody is not getting their message across. There are a few things that will improve your powers of communication right away.
1 Think about what message you want to say and how you are
going to say it. When you are ready to send or say your message, speak as clear
as you can, so there can be no mistakes and then wait to hear back. When someone
speaks to you, listen carefully to what they said. Here is the important thing,
if you don’t understand, ask them to say it again or you say “ I don’t get
it” This way, there are not so many communication errors. You will find that
you can get what you want by being able to put into words what you want and
speaking clearly. Also if you know how to listen carefully to other people you
will be able to understand them. When you fly over big cities where there are
lots of planes and lots of airports, good communication is very important. Even
though you may have problems communicating with other people you can, again with
a little time, practice and concentration be a master speaker and a master
listener.
Learning
Control
Does the pilot do the flying or does the airplane do the
flying? Is that a silly question? Not at all. It is an important question even
though it is a simple one. The airplane does the flying, but the pilot controls
the airplane. That means it is the pilot who says where we fly, how high we fly,
how fast we fly and where we go. You will learn to make the airplane do what you
want it to with little effort needed. In fact, the less muscle power you use the
smoother and more precise control you’ll have. As you learned to ride a
bicycle, gaining more control with practice, your airplane control will get
better and better until it becomes comfortable and easy. Using too much force or
power is just as bad as using too little force or power. So the pilot must learn
to use just the right amount of power and force to make the airplane do what he
wants it to do. This is called Control. The pilot must understand the limits if
his airplane. If the pilot tries to do something that the airplane cannot do,
the airplane stops flying and the pilot loses control. In your first lessons
will be learning a lot about aircraft control.
Learning
to make good Judgment Calls
As a pilot who is the captain of his ship, you will be
expected to do just the right thing at the right time. Choosing the right action
for each moment takes practice and experience. Any skill takes time and focus to
develop. You will fly safe and have a lot more fun as you make better and better
decisions. Decision-making is something we all do every day. We choose to do
what we do but when we make bad choices, things don’t go so well. That’s how
you can tell a bad choice from a good choice. There is even an official name for
bad choices made by pilots that have caused accidents. Its called Pilot Error.
The pilot has made some bad choices. There is no way to avoid mistakes and
everybody makes mistakes, but pilots and aircraft builders do not ignore their
mistakes, making the same mistakes over and over. Pilots learn from their
mistakes and because they learn something, they do not have to make the same
mistake over and over again. A pilot does not get mad or feel bad when a mistake
is made because something is learned from every experience and from every
flight. Your power to make just the right move at just the right time will
improve with your training. When you learn to make good decisions its smooth
flying all the way!
Learning
to Assume Responsibility
Whenever you say to someone “Don’t worry, I will take care of it. Leave it up to me”,
you are taking or assuming responsibility for something. You are saying that you will care for something. A pilot assumes responsibility for the lives of all the people on board, the aircraft, and the people and property on the ground, whenever he or she flies. That is why pilots must take tests and earn their license to fly. This way you can feel safe knowing that the pilot that is flying can take care of you and the plane you’re flying in. You can assume responsibility for anything you care about. When you take responsibility for a pet, for example, you say, “I will make sure my pet is well cared for”. Assuming responsibility means you can be counted on by others but more importantly that you can count on yourself. You can assume responsibility for your own education, making sure you are taking care of every chance to learn about what comes your way. Taking charge of your affairs and what happens to you is important for everybody to learn but especially for pilots. After all you are the pilot in command and the pilot must take charge of the flight, making sure that everything is taken care of.