How do you fix airmanship?

[Slick Goodlin]

A friend and I were chatting tonight about some airmanship gripes the discussion shifted over to how you fix that. He said if we do a good enough job then everyone else will slowly pick it up by osmosis but in single pilot GA flying I’m not convinced that will work. After all, is good airmanship even visible if you’re not looking for it? Bad airmanship sure is.

So how do you make things better, or are they fine and like I said we’re only seeing a rare bunch of poor examples?

[Nark]

Well it comes in two forms;
You need a mentor and reflect what they do in your own actions. Therefore osmosis only partially work.

B: you need an initial instructor to demonstrate airmanship.


Analysis stem's from years and years of GA flying.

[Squaretail]

The most obvious problem is that if you got ten pilots together to determine what constitutes "good airmanship" you would find ten different definitions. While a good instructor can and should point out some of the maybe non-obvious tips to a neophyte, there's no changing who someone is at their core. I mean I run into one fellow who determined everyone else who didn't recognize his superior needs as an airman and give way deferentially immediately was practicing "bad airmanship".

As for correcting someone who is a ways from the ab initio stage of their pilot journey I would be of the opinion that only substantial negative reinforcement would get them to change their ways, or traumatic event. But I'm not even convinced the latter will, and the former works only if said negative reinforcement can be continually applied for long lengths of time.

I mean this wouldn't even be solved if everyone followed the Colonel's Guideline 1.00 for aviation: try not to piss people off. Because it acknowledges that no matter how hard you try, its going to happen and someone is going to be offended and accuse you of "bad airmanship". And when that happens, apologize if you can, then just move on.

[digits]

The most obvious problem is that if you got ten pilots together to determine what constitutes "good airmanship" you would find ten different definitions. While a good instructor can and should point out some of the maybe non-obvious tips to a neophyte, there's no changing who someone is at their core. I mean I run into one fellow who determined everyone else who didn't recognize his superior needs as an airman and give way deferentially immediately was practicing "bad airmanship".

As for correcting someone who is a ways from the ab initio stage of their pilot journey I would be of the opinion that only substantial negative reinforcement would get them to change their ways, or traumatic event. But I'm not even convinced the latter will, and the former works only if said negative reinforcement can be continually applied for long lengths of time.

I mean this wouldn't even be solved if everyone followed the Colonel's Guideline 1.00 for aviation: try not to piss people off. Because it acknowledges that no matter how hard you try, its going to happen and someone is going to be offended and accuse you of "bad airmanship". And when that happens, apologize if you can, then just move on.

^^ This

As an example, look at how people react when you try to get them to stick to standard ATC phraseology, or point out issues with what they're transmitting. And that's about words being spoken on a radio.
Now imagine trying to define and get people to change what they do. Good luck!

[Colonel]

I wish I could worry about airmanship. I am surrounded by people who struggle to take off and land. 100 hours and 500 times around the pattern to solo - not PPL, just to solo - doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

I am a stranger in a strange land. Every once in a while I will blurt out an observation from the 20th century such as - Gee my father went solo on a Harvard in 10 hours in 1951, just like everyone else in his class - and I might as well be from Mars.

I beg people to learn to fly slowly and control yaw, but that is merely the path to shadow banning.

[Squaretail]

I wish I could worry about airmanship. I am surrounded by people who struggle to take off and land. 100 hours and 500 times around the pattern to solo - not PPL, just to solo - doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

I am a stranger in a strange land. Every once in a while I will blurt out an observation from the 20th century such as - Gee my father went solo on a Harvard in 10 hours in 1951, just like everyone else in his class - and I might as well be from Mars.

I beg people to learn to fly slowly and control yaw, but that is merely the path to shadow banning.

First, you have to admit you live in a bit of a bubble when it comes to flying these days. I would say that too in some regards when I spent more of my time around the bugsmashing crowd. Nowadays, "airmanship" or lack there of really only comes up when I visit that world again, and the same could be said of skill issues. While I don't doubt there's guys who have bad stick skills in the rest of the pilot world, its become non-obvious now that I don't sit next to them anymore. Blessed that I am to no longer engage in ab initio or even company training.

And don't be so surprised about the 10 hours deal, they might not even know what a Harvard is. I was commenting one day how I wanted to see if I could go sit in a P-51 I saw on the ramp one day (fates conspired against me hooking that up) and the other pilots I was with all looked at me like I was nuts, which they may be correct about, but that's another story for another day. And you and I know that 10 hours to solo is more about the students than the instructors or airplanes. I mean if I can hand pick the students, I could give you a reasonable guarantee about doing it. I actually engaged in that experiment with the last few I did PPLs on. But if I gave you ten randos off the street... who are the crowd who will show up at any given flight school? No way in hell.

But the more aviation I do it feels like "airmanship" is in the eye of the beholder.

[Colonel]

What’s wrong with a P-51? They’re kind of noisy but ….

Airmanship to me means, you could have done the right thing but you didn’t, either because you lacked situational awareness or you’re an evil bastard that just doesn’t give a shit. Generally both groups of people are not looking for any advice.

Where I live, people couldn’t do the right thing even if they knew what it was. I fear that I’m losing my flying ability, out here in asshat land.

I remember the senior engineer in my group, told my now-director years ago that he had to stop doing interviews - he was losing his programming ability. I know how he feels.

[Colonel]

Funny story. Even aviation related!

So I’m doing an interview, and the engineer candidate has “antenna design” listed on his resume. So I tell the kid, design me a Marconi antenna for a 120Mhz VHF radio using the back of an envelope.

This isn’t as gnarly as it sounds. Every engineer knows that:

Velocity = Frequency x Wavelength.

Think of time x speed = distance and you've got the right idea. Many physics problems can be solved by cancelling out units until you get what you want.

Anyways the speed of light is 3 x 10^8 meters /second. Everyone knows that. Plug that into the equation above along with the 120 MHz and you get the wavelength - which you divide by 4 for a Marconi antenna. Ta-da!

Kid had no idea what I was talking about. I told him, here’s a lesson for you: don’t ever lie on your resume. Everyone on the internet is full of shit but your resume had better be golden. If you're an antenna designer, I'm the King of Denmark.

There’s some airmanship for ya. Don’t lie on your resume. Don’t lie about your qualifications or experience. If you say you have a PhD from CMU you know I’m going to phone the registrar.

[Colonel]

This is even sorta aviation related. One of the kids I work with went to Hudson High (West Point) and part-way through his undergrad had second thoughts about working for the government and switched to CMU. Said the academic gap was a bit of a hard hit at first. He got his rotary PPL during COVID when he got bored.

Anyways this kid is super bright. I can pretty well guarantee you will all use his stuff in the future.

[Squaretail]

What’s wrong with a P-51?

Nothing, but I realized that the crowd I was hanging with weren't interested in anything they weren't getting paid to fly. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I just know I'm in the minority of pilots rather than the majority.

Airmanship to me means, you could have done the right thing but you didn’t, either because you lacked situational awareness or you’re an evil bastard that just doesn’t give a shit.

Well there's the crux of the issue. Fortunately (I guess?) most of them are in the former category rather than the latter.