The aviating brain

Who hasn’t found the demands of managing a business or some personal issue intruding into our minds when we should be focused on flying the aeroplane? This is a daily threat for all pilots and there is no easy fix.

The challenge is for all pilots to build awareness of the frailties of the brain, to get and use tools that counter those threats, and to reinforce good behaviours so as to strengthen their resilience in the face of high workloads and potential distractions.

AAAA has been helping application pilots improve their focus on the job at hand for years, including providing top speakers and training on mental focusing, relaxation and stress management. Identifying relevant actions to trigger a more intense focus on the job has been a part of this. Some ag pilots relate how they use closing the door on the cockpit as a signal to clear their head and concentrate, while others talk of ‘putting on their game face’ – a mental focusing technique straight out of sports psychology.

But it is difficult is to maintain focus and concentration in the real world where distractions come at you all day long.

Some ‘new’ popular books on psychology are helping us understand the brain better, even if only to underline some well known principles and practices – well known within psychology circles but only now finding a wider audience and relevance.

“The Brain That Changes Itself” by Norman Doidge provides a number of insights that reinforce why pilots should always keep learning and should seek to repeat good behaviours.

For example, the simple saying that ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’, not only helps us understand that reinforcing neural pathways makes a particular thought or action ‘easier’, it also clarifies the importance of establishing and maintaining our own personal standards – either through independent checking or benchmarking ourselves against ‘good’ pilots.

Another useful phrase is that ‘the brain is like a muscle – use it or lose it’. A professional’s commitment to constant improvement and learning takes on a whole new level of importance when you realize it may actually be helping to maintain not just specific skills, but also your overall mental capacity and resilience.

Pilots shouldn’t limit themselves to information with ‘aviation’ in the title – there is a lot of stuff out there relevant to your job – you just have to be able to see its relevance to what you do and perhaps apply it in a new way.

The whole area of human factors is now required study for student pilots and hopefully this requirement for some ‘knowledge of self’ will help pilots stop making the same mistakes.

However, knowledge of itself is useless unless it is applied – and to make it practical it often has to be interpreted into useful actions by instructors, mentors and senior pilots that act as triggers for the real mental work.

Regardless of the stage of your knowledge of human factors, a big part of aviation safety is the bedrock safety principle of self-disciple indentified by Tony Kearns – self-discipline to use checklists (because we know our short term memory can only hold 7 items +/-2), self-discipline to treat every take-off with respect, self-discipline to have and use personal safety buffers.

CASA will be launching its Safety Behaviours: Human Factors for Pilots kit soon and Tony Kern will be in Australia in June – professional pilots should seek out his CASA sponsored seminars – details on the CASA website.

“A big part of aviation safety is the bedrock safety principle of self-disciple indentified by Tony Kearns.”

As for golf – it may well be a ‘good walk ruined’, but it can still teach us the importance of the ‘inner game’ to aviation.

Convention 2009

AAAA Convention 2009 is shaping up as an excellent opportunity to bring yourself up to speed with all that is new in the industry.

Featuring a keynote address by CASA’s new CEO John McCormick, a challenging presentation on sorting the myth from reality by one of Australia’s top policy commentators Jennifer Marohasy, and high level training on whipping your business into shape and negotiation skills, this Convention will stimulate plenty of discussion and thought.

A world class trade show will also feature new products for aerial agriculture and a great opportunity for any company wanting to break into the ag market in Australia to put their products in from of most of the industry at one time. It will also feature our annual President’s Trophy golf competition (see article above…).

All registration forms and draft program are on the AAAA website at www.aerialag.com.au