Mind Games

THERE ARE REALLY TWO PILOTS IN YOUR HEAD, AND BOTH ARE COMPETING TO BE IN CHARGE

- John Zimmerman

There’s a lot of truth to that old saw, but becoming a safe pilot surely means more than just racking up hours. After all, 10,000-hour ATPs are not immune to having accidents.

Some authors have even argued that increasing flight experience might lead to more accidents — at least until pilots reach about 1,000 hours. This so-called “killing zone” traps pilots who have enough experience to be confident but not enough experience to be truly safe.

Like many pilots, I spent some time in that zone, trying to balance my improving skills and my occasional complacency. A wise flight instructor helped me immensely one day when he suggested that becoming a safe pilot had more to do with learning how to think than learning how to fly. He had a point. While I could easily manage a crosswind landing to a short runway, I struggled with mental tasks: making the go/no-go decision, planning the right fuel load or simply staying ahead of the airplane. Some things seemed so automatic, but others were as challenging at 200 hours as they were at 20 hours.

About 15 years later, I read Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow, and suddenly, the struggle made sense. Kahneman describes the two contradictory ways the human brain works: “System 1” is fast-moving and emotional, while “System 2” is more deliberative and thoughtful. System 1 causes us to swerve the car when we see oncoming lights; System 2 takes over when we’re faced with a difficult math problem. While System 2 often makes better decisions, it doesn’t contribute unless we actively engage our critical-thinking skills.