“The writing on the wall was for all to see
Then again I knew it was only for me!
The words were white and definitely loud!
Then again it was written in the cloud!”
Did you know that the person who is responsible for the safety of more than 300-400 people gets trained by being blinded!?
or by wearing Foggles! WHAT IS THAT!?
read on!
In this novel called Don’t let others rent space in your head by Gary Coxe; Gary talks about Irrational Optimism which is a different blog but then he tells about how Pilots are trained!
When we were young there were only two movies for people who wanted to be Pilots! One of course was Top Gun! While the other was this little gem called Vijeta! Everyone would have seen Top Gun and Tom with his Ray Ban and his confidence! The way he walks and talks and his whole attitude reeks of confidence which gets shaken when he meets with an accident of course. But this is what Gary is trying to tell in the novel about Irrational Optimism! Confidence is good but overconfidence is never good!
Then you have Vijeta! In a serene performance by the son of Shashi Kapoor; Kunaal comes across as a nervous guy who has no idea of what he has to do! He jumps from one place to another to finally join the air force to try and become a fighter pilot! That is the most difficult job in the force!
In one scene he gets frozen in mid air putting both him and his instructor’s life at risk! To recover from that and then become a pilot is a great task indeed!
Which is why training for the Pilots is a very important task indeed!
Apparently one of the commonest Pilot cause for a crash is the loss of orientation or Vertigo! Which becomes worse when there is bad weather and low visibility! Which is why fresh pilots are never allowed to fly in bad weather.
The crux apparently here is that the pilots must not trust their instincts but rely on the instruments! Now Gary states that when you consider the effects of vertigo and the training necessary to teach someone to ignore feelings and obey instruments, it might just sound as though the agency has appropriately strict guidelines in place but it is not so!
The interesting thing is that many, if not most, pilots who pass their instrument checkride, who are legal to fly in the clouds and take you up with them, have never actually flown through a cloud?
But rest assured their training has been done! This is where the Foggles come into play! In the instrument checkride training, the conditions of low or no visibility is presented while flying to the Pilot. He is either blind folded or the outer environment is hooded or he is given a foggy goggles called the Foggles! All these keep his outer environment and his or her own personal visual cues out of the action and he or she is asked to fly and land the plane only by using the instruments of the Plane and nothing else!
Of course you have requirements of certain hours to qualify for the commercial pilot license so you do not have to worry! Also a commercial flight has great ground and other technical support for added safety.
However, Gary actually makes a teaching point in the whole scheme of things in that he says that in many decisions of your life you must use your instruments to fly and ignore your feelings! This is because sometimes your feelings actually make you take the wrong decisions!
Deep though which can reach the skies! Of course for being a Pilot you have to do multitasking! Which reminds me of Multitalented Pritish Nandy! Heartfelt condolences
Om Shanthi
Shubh ratri…
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