Surditas, Sheep Guts, Capt Stable, et al.
The average military pilot leads a very sheltered life; as a group you are highly experienced and thoroughly trained in comparison with some pilots in civil operations (one half-life each of my flying career). In my civil persona I am now hardened to the fact that not all pilots have been upside-down in an aircraft let alone stalled one. Then there is flight with power-plant failure …. etc. But with respect to the topic the most significant difference is that the military system teaches Airmanship and military pilots are encouraged and expected to continually develop their Airmanship. This is not that civil trained pilots do not have airmanship, just IMHO not as good as a military trained pilot. Now this difference could be due to all the additional training or range of experiences that the military pilots get (well not as much as in my day), but I suspect that it is the focus on the critical elements of airmanship that make the military pilot stand out. Taking self discipline as the bedrock of airmanship (‘Redefining Airmanship’ Tony Kern ISBN 0070342849) then it is possible that the application of military discipline to airmanship, something that also controls or is reflected in behavior, that enables pilots with good airmanship to control fear - ‘panic’.
From my own flying experience, and the investigation of others experiences in incident situations, I have not seen panic. However in all events there has been a degree of fear, and a parallel degree of control of that fear. Poor control of fear, in the extreme, could be classed as panic, but not to the extent of a ‘headless chicken’. Those pilots (all of us), who ‘panicked’ either rushed into action without thought, were stunned to conscious or physical inaction, or just resigned to helplessness. Within our industry, prevention and recovery from these situations is currently based on CRM:- ‘a black art’ not yet widely accepted.
Thus I wonder if Trish were to investigate panic in pilots from the basis of fear and the control of that fear, against a pilot’s background, civil / military, what would be concluded about panic in pilots? I would also be interested in any correlation between the type of training given, Airmanship vs CRM, and the individuals perception of, and the value of that training. Again in my experience those pilots who ‘panicked’ did not have a military background and did not show good CRM qualities. There was also limited evidence that where CRM training had been given it either was not focused on airmanship ‘self discipline - human behavior’, or it had not been accepted due to the individual’s rejection of the value of such training.
A thought for the future. As the supply of military pilots for the civil industry decreases, how then are we to teach military style self discipline and Airmanship to the new civil pilots? What added values do the military have from their experience (including ‘upsets’ and stalls), that will not be available to the new generations; how indeed do you teach experience when you have to be there to gain it? And isn’t at least one fearful experience in the air essential for airmanship anyway?