Hognose
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2003
- Messages
- 2,182
- Location
- Seacoast New Hampshire, USA
- Aircraft
- PA-28/J-3/various
- Total Flight Time
- Gyro - 2.5! FW, hundreds not thousands. Helo, 0 (some day!)
Gents,
been busy but I still fly a bit (not gyros, unfortunately) and think about flying a lot. One of the things I've always thought about is risk-taking behavior.
The fact is, many mishaps are caused by irresponsible or excessive risk taking. This is true across all aviation whether you are one guy in an ultralight gyro, or whether you are an airline trying to wring more hours for less money out of your pilots, or whether you are a military pilot preparing for or conducting combat operations.
On the other hand, you can't be a pilot without being a risk-taker. Other things being equal, you're safer at home on the couch than you are at the stick of an aircraft. And if you're so timid that you can't make quick, reliable judgments in the air -- well, nothing personal, but I'd rather not share the sky with you any more than we'd like to share it with a careless or reckless person. There is a risk-taking "sweet spot."
This blog post discusses just that, and suggests that there's a "golden third" -- a place on the risk-taking spectrum between paralyzed timidity and macho recklessness. And being in that golden third not only makes you more likely to be, say, a pilot -- it's positively correlated with happiness and life satisfaction.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/03/the-art-of-living-dangerously.html
There's some nonsense (and some non-nonsense) in the comments, but the post is solid. May you all optimize your risk-taking behavior... or, in fewer words, fly safe.
cheers
-=K=-
been busy but I still fly a bit (not gyros, unfortunately) and think about flying a lot. One of the things I've always thought about is risk-taking behavior.
The fact is, many mishaps are caused by irresponsible or excessive risk taking. This is true across all aviation whether you are one guy in an ultralight gyro, or whether you are an airline trying to wring more hours for less money out of your pilots, or whether you are a military pilot preparing for or conducting combat operations.
On the other hand, you can't be a pilot without being a risk-taker. Other things being equal, you're safer at home on the couch than you are at the stick of an aircraft. And if you're so timid that you can't make quick, reliable judgments in the air -- well, nothing personal, but I'd rather not share the sky with you any more than we'd like to share it with a careless or reckless person. There is a risk-taking "sweet spot."
This blog post discusses just that, and suggests that there's a "golden third" -- a place on the risk-taking spectrum between paralyzed timidity and macho recklessness. And being in that golden third not only makes you more likely to be, say, a pilot -- it's positively correlated with happiness and life satisfaction.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/03/the-art-of-living-dangerously.html
There's some nonsense (and some non-nonsense) in the comments, but the post is solid. May you all optimize your risk-taking behavior... or, in fewer words, fly safe.
cheers
-=K=-