The ability to be consistently plausible when making excuses as to why the aircraft was wholly and always at fault with regard to any defect also helps....

Jane, to explain a few things
No. Compartmentalization is a skill of mental capacity to focus on what is at hand, and set aside that which is not.

You leave the office at the office, the wife at home, and focus on cockpit and mission tasks.

Those who can't do that frequently make mistakes, some of them fatal, in the cockpit.

If you can find it on the web, try to view a copy of the lecture "Sex and the Naval Aviator." This film was hugely popular as a training tool regarding the psychology of American Navy pilots. It was presented by an experienced flight surgeon who'd been dealing with pilots for most of his career. No, I mean what I said, not what you said.
Why did you try to change the meaning of what I said? Perhaps what I am getting at is that of those factors, each may have a slightly different weight in a given individual.

ASTB means Aviation Selection Test Battery
ASTB Overview

ASTB Study Guide
I find that the internet, and gouge, render the original intent of the ASTB style tests (used to be AQT/FAR) less effective than when one could not use the gouge or "know what was on the test before you took it."

Fox3: good point. "Don't ever give up" is a good mental predisposition.
"I can do this!" has a name, I am sure, among the shrinks, but I can't recall it at the moment.

Another point, Jane: successful military pilots, in terms of those who are successful over the long term, also have the capacity for honest self-criticism. I don't know what the shrinks call that: humility?

In a given ready room, finding humility is sometimes tougher than finding a virgin in a brothel ... who isn't a customer! :}

"A Pilot"
 

Lonewolf 50's last line reminds me of the "service provider's" supposed description of a typical pilot:
"Clean collar, dirty shirt, small **** and no money".
Granted, it was made a long time ago: collars aren't usually detachable these days ...

"All the RAF pilots I've met are brain-dead from the bollocks upwards"

- quote from the 1970's from a school friend who was the teenage daughter of a company test pilot

Thought "compartmentalisation" was generally a "male" attribute - so how do women pilots deal with the issue?

"- so how do women pilots deal with the issue?"
it's well known women can only concentrate on one thing at a time

James,

Yeah, 'cause if a woman could multi task, she could have a headache and sex at the same time!

Bugis Street, Singapore.1966. "You aircrew all same, big ticker, small pricker and pay by cheque" :)

Fox3WheresMyBanana

I'm ambiverted (mildly extraverted) when sober; able to tolerate a huge amount of alcohol (genetics?), but sluggish and heavy when intoxicated (I don't enjoy it at all), I think a lot and have OCD when I'm by myself, but in emergencies I seem to be the most level-headed and strangely calm person in the group -- (I was a lifeguard for several years and saved 11 people, of which one had a cardiac arrest).


galaxy flyer

That makes sense. Eddie Rickenbacker was a race-car driver prior to becoming a pilot.


Krystal n chips

LMAO


Lonewolf 50

Oh, okay -- I understand what you mean. That usually isn't that hard to do, adrenaline really helps assist that process though.

Sounds like an interesting lecture...

It's important to not just be determined, but to know when what you're doing just isn't cutting it, start trying something different, switch strategies and taking different angles.

Understood

Makes sense. If you never acknowledged your weak-spots, it would only be a matter of time before that weak-spot would eventually get you creamed in one way or another.

Sounds like most FI's I know.....