Morning JB, my question also relates to pilot training. I am reading a book by a famous investor who talks about the lack of multidisciplinary models being used by professionals to solve problems (eg. A man with a hammer only sees nails). He goes on to say that colleges should take a leaf out of the way pilots are trained to look at problems by using a variety of mental models (eg. engineering (backup systems), psychology (cognitive biases), mathematics (eg calculating fuel loads, fuel burned in x time in an emergency), biology (reward systems)) as well as using a thing like a check-list that can help remove bias. Can you please give a run-down on how these models were taught to yourself and how someone who is not training to be a pilot but would love to learn about the approach to training and problem solving can go about it?
Of course, I don't see what I do as being multi disciplinary at all...it's just what a pilot does. When I look back at the RAAF Pilots' Course, you see that whilst much of it was taught by the flying instructors, some of the ground subjects were taught by specialists. Met by a meteorologist, ATC by a controller, navigation by a navigator, Avmed by a doctor, engineering by an engineer. In all cases the subject could have been covered by one of the QFIs, but not to the same depth.
Once you leave the military, it tends to be more by osmosis. For instance, nobody teaches pilots how to deal with passengers, but we follow the examples we see from those 'old and bold' Captains that we all flew with. We actually tend to be very bad 'students' when the company decides to have mixed cabin/tech crew classes, as they sometimes do in EPs, because we tend to find that our whole mindset has been coloured by the idea that "the aircraft is moving at 1,000 feet per second...it will get there whether you are ready or not", and so classes that beat about the bush, really annoy.
When teaching new pilots to fly, one thing you almost always have to work on is decision making. The aircraft will always get there, but ideally you want your mind to get there first. Mucking about, playing with all of the options you may think you have, simply amounts to procrastinating. Once the aircraft is ahead of you, you've become a passenger. I remember telling many a student to just 'make a decision'...initially it doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong. Work on getting the decision made...and eventually the accuracy will improve too. Do it the other way around, and he'll always make the right decision, but too late to use it...so it's now the wrong one.
The maths...well that just underlies everything. Fairly simple trig and geometry will cover most navigation issues. Here's something for you to play with...you're over Australia, flying from (say) Perth to Sydney. At approximately Mildura, you're advised that Sydney has closed. Find the limit that you could safely fly to, in every direction (i.e. not just one solution, but all of them), using a map, a piece of thread and a pin or two. Ensure you allow for the known average wind.
I see aviation as always building on the shoulders of whatever came before. QF doesn't go back and reteach things that were covered by the RAAF (or whatever your previous life). They assume you actually know that stuff, and move to new items that they know you'll not have covered. Manufacturers normally don't take a bunch of new engineers from university, and tell them to design from scratch...they normally build on what has worked previously.
