A lot of truth to what Flyer59 has to say the dogma of the “this is the only way to do it” is generally the preserve of those who only know one way of doing things.
SOP’s are of limited use in a single pilot cockpit and as long as the pilot is flying safely they will get my signature in the book for the biannual flight with an instructor. The only place for SOP’s is within a training organisation so that a student gets the same story from all the instructors.
Peter wrote:
I am not sure about that definition of Type A but GA does have a lot of nice people who are successful in their professions etc and as you might expect are fairly “driven”. So I think “Type A” does not mean nasty people.
A few hangars down from me is a mild mannered guy in his 50s who doesn’t say too much. Years ago when I was looking at getting (back) into aviation I contacted him about a Cessna 140 and he took me for a ride and encouraged me in a very mild and friendly way. Only recently did I find out that he was a Topgun instructor. 
People get nasty when they are under pressure and competing to survive, whether or not the underlying situation is necessary or valid. In an open and less ‘managed’ environment they tend to cooperate for mutual benefit.
Peter wrote:
I am not sure about that definition of Type A
I have never heard of this type A before, I originally thought it was about alpha males According to what google can find, Type A was a way of trying to find people predisposed for cardiac arrest due to stress. Stress caused by inability to relax and inability to enjoy life. As per definition this cannot be people who use time and money on their hobby.
Anyway, what exactly do you mean by pilots wanting stricter regulations? is this an internet phenomenon or a more general thing?
When we sit in front of someone, and discuss, we see the colour of their eyes, the tone of skin, and importantly, gauge their emotion. By voice tone, we can tell the emotion behind a phrase. The web has changed that. On Internet forums, we cannot, and very often, the written word is totally misinterpreted, resulting in a downward spiral of negativity. When others see this, they have two choices. Engage in the ever increasing hostility, generally towards one, pack mentality, or support the put upon individual. I do not think that this is the sole preserve of the pilot community. All walks of Internet life see this. The PPRuNe forum is classic. I have noticed of late, that the pack close up, when one poor sod deems to disagree with a favoured poster. They effectively close the thread. Nice….
I also do not like categorising people into “types”. They obviously exist, but it is far better to engage positively, and try not to look at A, or B types. Or C for that matter. In all my time in aviation, I have encountered far more ‘nice’ people, than horrors, but, I have met some pretty awful people, but they would have been just as awful if they were in the queue at Tesco, and not on an airfield.
Now, flying club committees, new thread?
BeechBaby wrote:
I also do not like categorising people into “types”.
Seconded. At the very least there ought to be many more categories or types. But where is the need? A grown-up can and indeed wishes to assess each person individually. Only simple minds, politicians, military (add other groups perhaps), need categories of people.
What we might also do well to remember is that for any conversation, only a certain percentage of the meaning of the sentence is conveyed by the words themselves – if I recall correctly, the words make up 40% of the meaning of a spoken conversation, The rest is actually conveyed by the tone and by the body language but in the web, the inflection is not there, emotion / body language is missing and only words remain hence the potential for error is given.
Then you have those who are insecure of themselves; these people generally, when given the option to read a positive or a negative meaning from the same collection of words, will always tend to read a negative tone out of that written passage. My attitude is that if someone has a problem with me and I don’t know them personally, that’s their problem, not mine…..
Peter wrote:
… but GA does have a lot of nice people …
Luckily these people are the vast majority. “My” sector of GA – commercial business aviation – is mostly populated by two types of pilots: The young ones who need 1500 hours to qualify for for airline employment and people like myself who turned their former hobby into a new profession. The latter kind almost entirely composed of dedicated, “nice” people who form some kind of fraternity that is difficult to meet elsewhere. No one among these people (at least not the ones who really are part of the group) would post anonymously on Facebook or WhatsApp to harm their colleagues.
Good article Peter thanks for posting…I’m
Not sure its just pilots!
I am increasingly amazed at the way people conduct themselves on the Internet and in person, with scant regard for anyone elses feelings.
I come from a legal background which you might think is full of ego, bravado and narcissistic individuals, but the very best lawyers (and for that matter people) I know are generally not caught up on being overly adversarial or critical of others, it’s unnecessary. You can be assertive and get you point across without having to reduce yourself to the lowest common denominator.
My old boss had a fantastic saying " I could write a book about everything i know about family law and fill a library with everything I don’t know!" She hated arrogance and went out of her way to rid the firm of arrogant individuals and for that matter clients!!
I’m a big fan of this forum and feel I’ve learnt a lot from regularly visiting. I think the very ‘hands on’ moderating / administrating plays a huge part in keeping trolls away.
Good manners are essential free….if only people would remember that from time to time!
I think Aviation and motorsports are quite similar. Both great fun. Excellent hobbies but very hard to make money as a business. Most people in both areas are normal pleasant individuals doing their best but sometimes the monetary challenges make some people behave terribly. And being a good driver or mechanic or pilot does not make you a good businessperson.
BeechBaby wrote:
a soon to be retired A330 training captain
@BeechBaby: I think that is the key part. Haven’t made that experience in aviation yet but in another industry. Its people who have been a nuisance to others all their working life and are about to lose their victims or disciples and are looking for new opportunities.
Steve6443 wrote:
the words make up 40% of the meaning of a spoken conversation,
@Steve6443: Thats a bit of a pet peeve of mine, because I have quoted that number before and got called out for it, rightly so. Its based on a study where a single word has been spoken with conflicting meaning, vocal expression and body/face expression. Kind of makes sense that we put lots of trust in the non verbal part in this scenario. But I am generally with you that lots of information is lost in written communication and that this is at least one important factor for bad online behaviors.
In general my experience in the aviation world has been positive with some negative key characters, sprinkled into the mix. I am now also at an airfield and club which is far more service oriented and the amount of interaction you have with other people is very much up to you, making it easy to avoid any issues with people you don’t get along with.
I think one of the key issues is that we don’t have a good error and safety culture in GA. I would say the airlines figured out that the personality traits you would expect from a 60s pilots cliche are quite counterproductive to safety. This also seems to be different in the military aviation world these days. A great book on this topic is Chris Hadfield’s “An astronauts guide to life on earth”.
We all mess up and we all make boneheaded mistakes, very few people talk about it. Anybody who claims that he doesn’t is quite suspect in my book. And there is still a strong culture of putting blame on someone that makes an error and labeling him as a bad pilot. And I think this whole culture makes it even more likely for people to become evangelical about errors and mistakes. In my experience its usually the people who preach loudest who are actually the worst. They refuse to accept their own short comings and want to fight those in the outside world instead of inside themselves. On the other hand it also leads people to deny their own short comings and not reflect on their mistakes and improve that way.
