Left-Right, dyslexia
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This is no laughing matter.
I knew 2 pilots with the same problem, who, after years of managing to disguise the problem, and numerous failures along the way, made it to airline flying. Their subsequent careers were plauged with incidents, including one near-fatal occurance. Both are now out of the aviation business. Thankfully, they killed no-one.
Now for the cruel, tough, politically incorrect response - DON'T FLY! Unless a cure which guarantees normalcy can be found which has a high certainty of success, stay on the ground!
So easy for me to take such a stance? - NO!. My daughter loves flying with a passion as great as mine, but has a condition which is occasionally debilitating. She could have disguised it, but took the adult, responsible approach, abandoned flying, and found a new profession. I'm proud of her for it.
If I am temporarily debilitated, I call in sick. If I ever find myself with a long term condition averse to flying, I will hand in my licence.
I knew 2 pilots with the same problem, who, after years of managing to disguise the problem, and numerous failures along the way, made it to airline flying. Their subsequent careers were plauged with incidents, including one near-fatal occurance. Both are now out of the aviation business. Thankfully, they killed no-one.
Now for the cruel, tough, politically incorrect response - DON'T FLY! Unless a cure which guarantees normalcy can be found which has a high certainty of success, stay on the ground!
So easy for me to take such a stance? - NO!. My daughter loves flying with a passion as great as mine, but has a condition which is occasionally debilitating. She could have disguised it, but took the adult, responsible approach, abandoned flying, and found a new profession. I'm proud of her for it.
If I am temporarily debilitated, I call in sick. If I ever find myself with a long term condition averse to flying, I will hand in my licence.
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Location: Liverpool based Geordie, so calm down, calm down kidda!!
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Old Smokey.... Agreed!
Batninth, I am afraid it is not a silly little problem. When I heard about my ex student who nearly hit the cliff, I felt sick. I should have pushed harder for him to be chopped again.
Batninth, I am afraid it is not a silly little problem. When I heard about my ex student who nearly hit the cliff, I felt sick. I should have pushed harder for him to be chopped again.
Oh Shazbat!
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Jayteeto - Let's take this thread in the context that it was started in: Aerodynamicist asked for advice for helping a student pilot with Left-Right problems. My posting was put up in the context to say that, for me, working with Left/NOT Left works better.
OK, so maybe the word "Silly" could be read out of context, but it certainly feels silly getting lost in hotel corridors or the offices of clients. For me the answer to anything more complicated - taking the controls of a flying machine, driving on the continent etc - requires planning, planning and more planning with visualisation.
If we take it to the context of flying - I must declare that I am a wannabe PPL here - I think about the lecture that we had from the safety team when I worked at British Aerospace about the momentum of our fast jet-powered flying machines and the kinetic energy that is within them. If you take charge of that much kinetic energy then I agree with Old Smokey that it is really a matter of working out whether or not you are capable of safely handling that much KE.
Looking at your posting it's not clear to the circumstances, but if flying visual surely the decision is not so much Left/NOT left as more Cliff/NOT Cliff? If it was in IMC then it's more worrying, as Old Smokey says it comes down to deciding to throw away the licence if you truely cannot cope with this. Should I ever attain the lofty heights of trying for an IMC rating, then it will be my decision of my L/R problem whether to continue or stick to visual flying.
Anyway we read very similar tales from perfectly able people in ILAFFT
OK, so maybe the word "Silly" could be read out of context, but it certainly feels silly getting lost in hotel corridors or the offices of clients. For me the answer to anything more complicated - taking the controls of a flying machine, driving on the continent etc - requires planning, planning and more planning with visualisation.
If we take it to the context of flying - I must declare that I am a wannabe PPL here - I think about the lecture that we had from the safety team when I worked at British Aerospace about the momentum of our fast jet-powered flying machines and the kinetic energy that is within them. If you take charge of that much kinetic energy then I agree with Old Smokey that it is really a matter of working out whether or not you are capable of safely handling that much KE.
Looking at your posting it's not clear to the circumstances, but if flying visual surely the decision is not so much Left/NOT left as more Cliff/NOT Cliff? If it was in IMC then it's more worrying, as Old Smokey says it comes down to deciding to throw away the licence if you truely cannot cope with this. Should I ever attain the lofty heights of trying for an IMC rating, then it will be my decision of my L/R problem whether to continue or stick to visual flying.
Anyway we read very similar tales from perfectly able people in ILAFFT
