The Mental Part of Flying

In reading the topic about the pilot who is getting back into flying after a long layoff and is nervous to solo.

Sometimes our mental attitude, even if unconscious, can make learning easier or difficult.

There are people today who would make it a hard thing to learn to drive in a manual shift car. I have heard people say, Oh, I can't drive a stick shift; almost as if they don't have the DNA to learn.
But back in 1940, no one thought like that, they just learned to drive, with whatever there was at the time.

Same with flying a tailwheel airplane, some folks today, and some CFIs act like learing in a tailwheel is an imposing obstacle. But no one thought that back in the 30s, a tailwheel airplane was what they had and no big deal.

I grew up in Texas, where good football and good bar b q was the norm. BUt NOT SNOW, and certainly not snow skiiing. So Texans have almost a mental block against learnig to snow ski, even if they are otherwise a good athlete.
I now live in Colorado. Kids here grow up where learnig to ski or snow board is just normal, virtually no one unless they have some phyical problem, would ever handicap themselves with negative thinking about learning to ski.

Don't let a negative attitude hold you back.

Hi Biil,

This is an interesting topic, and I would agree that a positive attitude is very important for success in any human activity. I have a degree in Business Management and I remember a formula used to measure human performance, simply stated; Ability times Motivation equals Performance (AxM=P). In management we try to quantify each element in the formula which can be very difficult, usually this formula is used in personnel evaluations of job performance by breaking down the various tasks needed to accomplish the goals of the position being evaluated. It is possible to find high and low scores in accomplishing these tasks and then discuss each with the job holder. Sometimes additional training is required to improve the ability and sometime just pointing out an area of "needs improvement" will open a conversation on the motivation side.

So much for the "management science" stuff, most folks in aviation are motivated people. Just getting your pilot's license takes a lot of time, money, and effort. Each person has his own reasons for learning to fly and adding various ratings. I am strictly a VFR pilot and I fly for pleasure, I'm not motivated to get an Instrument rating since I don't use the airplane for business travel. I think a pilot who hasn't flown for a long time would be a bit apprehensive when getting back, but that is when you need to call a CFI and get sharpened up. That builds confidence and greatly improves attitude.

That's my "positive" outlook for what it's worth!

Joe
:cool:

Hi Bill,
I think it's much deeper than motivation. I took a 17 year layoff from flyingand I can tell you it's hard getting back on the confidence saddle. I have noproblem with ATC / radio operations at my now towered airport. I have noproblem with the equipment (most is older than what I got my ticket in back in1982), preflight is a breeze. Ground operation is also OK. Air work is great,crosswind landing not much of an issue. But in the actual landing (round out/flair) that needs a lot of work / practice! I feel I could spend 15 hours of dueljust in landings & pattern work to completely feel safe again. I’ve gottenmaybe 7 hours of duel in the last 3 years. This is not enough to round off any rustyedges to feel safe. I’m also not the same pilot I was when I got my ticket. Ifelt I could fly anything, now I know better. Experience has taught me well. Guessthe old saying is true: about there not being any old bold pilots.

Mike

I got back into flying after a 24 year hiatus raising my children. A CFI that helped me get back into flying said I should have about 1 hour of dual for every year I haven't flown. It was a good idea. I had about 25 hours of dual in 2 different J5A's from 2 different CFI's before I test flew my J5A. I'm sooooo glad I had the dual. My test flight went smoothly.
-Joel Marketello

A lot of how long it takes you to get back in the saddle depends on how much time you have logged before the break. The U.S. military tries to get new pilots up over the 200 hr. TT mark as quickly as possible. Somewhere around 200-250 hrs. the muscle memory and other habits get pretty well ingrained.

When I started a 10 yr. break I have just over 200 hrs. logged. When I got back into flying, I started by finding an instructor and a 150. I told him I'd been out of flying for 10 years and what I wanted to do was see how bad the rust was. I asked him to basically sit there and do nothing unless it looked like I was about to kill us or do some serious damage to the airplane.

We were up for about an hour and a half and did everything except a stall series due to an overcast that was too low to allow that. When we were done he told me that he'd sign me off for a BFR right then except for the stalls.

Just tell yourself that you've done all this dozens if not hundreds of times before, let the muscle memory take over and enjoy yourself.