Professionalism

[eoincarey]

Hello all


Here's the question of the day: what, in your opinion, are the traits of a responsible and competent pilot, characteristics that all pilots should have whether they fly a Piper Cub or an A340? I ask this because in my experience, some private pilots can sometimes be a little cavalier in their attitude towards flying, and in an effort to be the best pilot i can be, I want to know what you guys think makes a god pilot.

Cheers for any replies

Eoin

[Snigs]

All pilots are Gods, didn't you know that!? ;)

[eoincarey]

bugger it - still cant type!! "Good" pilot then, happy??:cool:

[The African Dude]

I've always thought that professionalism, whilst subject to discretisation, can be broadly categorised as having the capacity to concentrate on the task at hand ONLY. Obviously the professional in question needs to remove personal, psychological, (etc.) problems from their capacity in order that it is free for the professional task and does not influence their decision making processes. Additionally, being very good at said task will allow you to critically evaluate your own performance, identify immediately any personal problems that inadvertantly appear in your subconscious and remove them. I suppose this is something addressed by Human Factors courses.

Ability to be self-critical whilst performing excellently and maintaining accurate situational awareness. Ability to be flexible to decided levels in pre-defined circumstances (adapt to changing surroundings in order to maintain control). Maintaining control.

There are bound to be loads of other things too so let's call this a starter for 10...?

[alf5071h]

I support TAD’s view. Professionalism can be seen as Airmanship as defined by Tony Kern – Discipline, Skill and Proficiency, Knowledge, Situation Awareness, and Judgement. Most of these attributes relate to each other and to the human factors aspects of attention management and being a skilled critical thinker - having self awareness.

[iqit]

a few thoughts...
- as a pilot ....you need to know your stuff ,no buts .
- egos kill people all the time ....i leave my ego on the stairway when i go to work .
- "matcho" overconfident pilots kill people too .....dont become one ......
- situational awareness is a bubble and you are in the centre of it .....inflate it with knowledge ,a good rest before flying ,and with other peoples opinions ,observations ,comments
- think ahead....what am i doing next?
- self critisism.....always re-evaluate your decissions.......was my decission the corect course of action?could i have done anything differently/better?
- a good commander ,cause you are never just a pilot,takes his plane from a to b ,safely ,in a relaxed and friendly enviroment
- be it ,you are a ppl commander on a pleasure flight with friends or a commander of an airliner the principles are the same .
......so much more to ad on this that the few lines above look incomplete .....

[foxmoth]

some private pilots can sometimes be a little cavalier in their attitude towards flying

This can apply to others beside PPLs, don't know about cavalier, but it seemed bad airmanship last night when at least 2 flights joined the hold at LGW after the change to the sby runway, reporting in response to their EAT- "if it is any longer than that I will have to divert". The sby runway change was notamed and the wx was forecast to be a lot worse than it actually was, surely a case for carrying extra! It may be that these guys were performance limited on departure or had got bad levels but I suspect this was not the case and they then put others out who had taken the extra and ended up with an extra turn round the hold with the additional fuel cost and delay.:hmm:

[Roadtrip]

A professional pilot know the capabilities and limitations of his aircraft, his crew, and himself. He does not exceed them.

A professional pilot obeys flight rules unless justified by extroidinary circumstances like an emergency.

A professional pilot leads his crew and does not drive them. He/she is courteous to his crew, ground staff, and air traffic control.

[floydie]

all of the above but that seems to be quite obvious, that's what we're trained for and that's what we get paid for like anybody ales excuting a certain profession. To me professional means: to be willing to learn about your profession. The moment you think you're there you stop being professional, no matter how well you think you are doing your job.

[Daysleeper]

A Professional pilot gets paid

A private one pays for themselves.


That is the only difference.