Unusual Attitude

This homey quote, widely and, as it turns out, wrongly attributed to Mark Twain, perfectly encapsulates my most common, regrettable, and easily avoidable errors in both flying and writing. And I think the saying, versions of which appeared long before the dawn of powered flight, applies especially broadly in aviation.

During a recent IFR flight to Caldwell, New Jersey, for example, the recorded voice on the automated terminal information service (ATIS) said the RNAV approach to Runway 22 was in use. I dutifully loaded that approach into the airplane’s GPS, checked in on the radio, and was told to proceed to a fix for an approach to Runway 28.

I searched in vain for the fix, and it wasn’t until a fellow pilot (who came along as a passenger) pointed out my error that the confusion was resolved. I had expected one approach, got cleared for another, yet the actual clearance didn’t register because I’d already written down and loaded the other one. I was hearing without listening.

I also wrote a story for AOPA Pilot recently in which I misspelled “Clamar” (as in Clamar Floats) because I was sure I knew how to spell the Maine company’s name and it had a Y. Heck, I’d recently flown an airplane with floats that had the name Clamar emblazoned on the side. I didn’t check the spelling because I was convinced I already knew it. My error was doubly embarrassing for being so easily avoidable.

These two errors, fortunately, were resolved without permanent harm. But there are plenty of examples of airplanes running out of fuel, landing with the gear in the wrong position, and suffering other serious consequences as a result of things pilots knew, or assumptions they made, that turned out to be false.

Our default position should be one of not knowing. When questions come up in flight, as they always do, we ought to be inquisitive. If you think you know the runway length, the latest wind, the airport elevation, congratulations. Double-checking will provide reassuring confirmation.

The best pilots I know are curious. They’re interested in new information, in learning, and challenging their own assumptions—and, most of all, they accept and are even amused by their human fallibility. New information that differs from what they thought they knew, or even proves them wrong, isn’t rejected, explained away, or cause for angst. They welcome it as information that will enable them to make smart choices.

I was overflying an area of bad weather at night and the airplane’s radar reported the cloud tops were 6,000 feet below my current altitude. That seemed like a safe margin. But redirecting the radar to a close-in, level scan showed towering spires of stormy weather reached to our airplane’s altitude and beyond. A more skeptical reading of the weather picture, and a timely diversion away from the bad weather, would have been a wise choice. Instead, I blundered through an area of violent weather that peeled the paint off the airplane’s radome.

I went to school to learn a new-to-me airplane last year, and my biggest obstacle in training was my desire to impress my instructors with how thoroughly I had prepared. A more secure pilot with an open mind would have asked questions, listened better, and absorbed the flood of new information quicker. By trying to show how much I already knew, I missed opportunities to learn from subject-matter experts with many years of real-world experience.

It’s a mistake I don’t intend to repeat.

The more experience pilots gain, the more we should question our own assumptions, double-check all the information we can, and acknowledge the things we don’t know.

And that’s true of writing, as well. I was so sure that the quote at the beginning of this column was said by Mark Twain that it didn’t occur to me to check it. Neither, apparently, did the makers of the movie The Big Short who used it, and attributed it to Twain. I’m glad I found the mistake before repeating it.

Only by admitting what we don’t know, can pilots avoid things that just ain’t so.