FIRST, TUESDAY'S USATODAY ARTICLE ON
FLIGHT ANXIETY BY GARY STOLLER

When Gary asked for volunteers to be interviewed for this ...   more »

STARTING SOON - MONTHLY TELECONFERENCES ON
OVERCOMING FLIGHT ANXIETY

I'll be sending you an email shortly about this new development. ...   more »

ERASURE

There is a movie starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey called 'Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. It is ...   more »

CAN A PERSON HAVE HIGH ANXIETY - OR PANIC - AND
HAVE NO CONSCIOUS IMAGES?

In the use of the ...   more »

For those of you out there that might like some technical questions answered or concerns addressed from my perspective regarding ...   more »

CONTROLLING AWARENESS

Last week, someone emailed about how he compulsively must check
and recheck things.

This may be a fear ...   more »

IT'S CHAT NIGHT, SO THIS MUST BE WEDNESDAY . . .

It's great to find out you are not the ...   more »

SUPPORT: "BESIDE" IS GOOD, "INSIDE" IS BETTER

Someone emailed saying they were doing great and the only better
thing would ...   more »

IT'S WEDNESDAY, SO THE CHAT IS TONIGHT

9 PM until 11 PM Eastern time.

Want to join us? Go to:

...   more »

Today, articles appeared about the Southwest accident at Chicago's
Midway Airport which were confusing. Let's clear the confusion up.
The ...   more »

IT'S WEDNESDAY, SO THE CHAT IS TONIGHT

9 PM until 11 PM Eastern time.

Want to join us? Go to:

...   more »

A LITTLE NERVOUS DURING TAKEOFF, BUT NOTHING LIKE BEFORE

Hi Tom,

I've been meaning to email you for a while ...   more »

WE CAN FEEL WHAT ANOTHER FEELS

The autonomic nervous system has two parts: one that revs us up
when facing ...   more »

DEAR ABBY: I have been happily married for five years to a wonderful man I met on the Internet. He ...   more »

IT'S WEDNESDAY - HAVE YOU TRIED THE CHAT YET?

Every Wednesday night, from 9 PM until 11 PM Eastern time, ...   more »

DEALING WITH ANXIETY OF YOUR PLANE BEING THE ONE IN
TEN MILLION THAT DOES CRASH

When we judge things rationally, ...   more »

FIRST, IF HOLIDAY FLIGHT ANXIETY HITS, EVEN AT THE LAST
MINUTE, CALL 877 332-7359 OR 203 258-4803

If you call ...   more »

ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR HOLIDAY FLYING?

If not sure, call me at 877 332-7359 between 10 AM and 7 ...   more »

"RAINMAN" AND SOUTHWEST AT MIDWAY

This week, I've had to answer several message board postings and
emails about the Southwest ...   more »

THAT THIS WORKS IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT

Hi Capt. Bunn:

I too still love reading all the "happy ending" stories from ...   more »

LIKE A SWITCH HAD BEEN TURNED OFF

Dear Tom:

I have been meaning to write you since I got back ...   more »

LITTLE OR NO OUTSOURCING AT AMERICAN AIRLINES

See:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310AP_American_Airlines_Labor.html

==========

MORE OUTSOURCING AT NORTHWEST

Since the start of 2001, Northwest ...   more »

PRIVATE PILOT ANXIETY (AS A PASSENGER), AUTOMATIC ANXIETY CONTROL

On the message board, a private pilot asked about anxiety when ...   more »

IT IS EMAILS LIKE THIS THAT KEEP LISA AND ME 'HOOKED' ON
RUNNING THE SOAR PROGRAM

It makes it possible ...   more »

WE GET LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF EMAILS PRAISING THE
SOAR VIDEO COURSE ON DVD

SOME REALLY MAKE MY DAY - THIS ...   more »

As a happily flying SOAR graduate, I would like to share with everyone another tool I have found very helpful ...   more »

DRIVING IN THE RAIN

It has been raining a lot here in Connecticut. Tonight driving home in the
rain, I ...   more »

Occasionally, on the SOAR Message Board and in Wednesday night Chat, there are questions regarding training requirements for airline pilots.

Minimum standards are set by the Federal Aviation Regulations. (FARs.) Different airlines have different training programs, but all must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). At American Airlines (AA), for whom I fly, we attend recurrent training every nine months. Since I completed requalification training in the MD-80 last February, I am due for recurrent training in November.

And, in fact, today (October 20th) I received my recurrent training schedule. This will take place the 11th through the 14th.

The first day, I will deadhead (that is, ride as a passenger) to Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (DFW), where AA’s pilot training facility (the AA Flight Academy, but we call it the “Schoolhouse”) is located.

Upon arriving in DFW, I’ll ride a Company-provided Shuttle from the terminal to the Flight Academy (about a ten-minute ride). My first class will be at 1:15 in the afternoon – MD-80 Performance, in which we’ll review performance requirements for all phases of flight – takeoff, cruise, and landing. Performance pertains to the ability of the airplane to safely – and legally -- fly under various conditions of weight, temperature, and altitude.

Following that, I’ll attend a Flight Manual Briefing. This consists of a review of legal considerations (there are many!), as well as a review of AA’s Company procedures. For example, we’ll look at hypothetical weather conditions for a given airport and runway, and discuss whether or not it would be legal to take off under those conditions. Same with a possible landing scenario. We’ll review any new requirements or regulations that may have come up since the last time we attended training. We’ll review “hot items” – operational problems that may be occurring on a frequent basis. (For example -- Runway Incursions – inadvertent and unauthorized entering of runway boundaries by airplanes on the ground, have been a “hot” topic for several years now.) Tips on how to avoid this sort of thing are offered.

That will complete Day One. Nest morning, I’ll attend Systems Review, for four hours. This pertains to the MD-80 airplane itself – electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, fuel, flight control, engines, auto-flight, flight management system, navigation – the works. Four hours really isn’t enough to thoroughly go over everything – it’s a review. Systems training during initial airplane qualification takes three weeks. But, it’s an opportunity to ask questions that may have come up during line operations, and refresh oneself on details that may have been forgotten since the last training cycle.

Following that I’ll go to Security training, just for pilots. This will last an hour and a half. We’ll go over recent threats to airline operations, and review techniques and procedures to deal with possible threats.

Then, it will be Human Factors and Safety class, lasting two hours and forty-five minutes. This deals with possible threats (non-security-related) to a safe operation. Possible topics could be fatigue, bad judgment, inter-personal relationships (e.g., between the Captain and First Officer), and others. Case studies of recent problems will be examined and discussed.

Next day, it’s into the simulator. We (I and a First Officer trainee) will meet with our instructor at 5:30 in the morning (ugh) and spend two hours discussing what we’ll be doing. Then, we’ll actually go do it. This will be a general review of takeoffs, approaches, landings, and emergency procedures. A lot of the work will be done with an engine inoperative, or a system (e.g. hydraulic or flight control) non-functioning. The simulator session will take four hours (with, mercifully, a fifteen or twenty-minute break about halfway through the session).

Following the simulator session, we’ll have another security class, this time jointly with Flight Attendants. (This is a new format, so I haven’t yet experienced it yet. Makes sense, though – flight security is a joint effort, and the F/As are the ones stuck back in the cabin with any Bad Actors.)

Finally, the last day. Back into the simulator again, showing up at 5:30 AM once more. We’ll – again – spend two hours with the instructor discussing what will happen. This time it will be a simulated, real-time, line flight, from Point A to Point B. “Something” irregular will “happen” during the flight, and we’ll be evaluated on our handling of the situation. There won’t necessarily be a Right or Wrong way to do it; rather, we’ll be judged on how we react, how we follow applicable procedures, and so on.

This will be a two-hour session. Following a short break, it’s AGAIN into the simulator, for Advanced Training. Here we’ll practice windshear escape, takeoffs from high-elevation airports, terrain avoidance, extreme weather conditions (slippery runway, strong crosswind, etc.) unusual attitude recovery (perhaps we’ll be flipped over by the wake from a very large airplane in front of us). Stuff that probably won’t happen in the Real World, but which we nonetheless must be prepared for.

Finally, I’ll get to head for the DFW airport terminal and catch a flight home. And, just nine short months later, I’ll be back again.

Please note – what I just described is recurrent training for pilots already flying a particular type of airplane. For initial training on a new airplane, the course is five weeks: three weeks of ground school (i.e., classroom and computer-based training) and two weeks – ten sessions – of simulator training, including an evaluation at the end.

For that matter, my MD-80 requalification training last winter was exactly the same as for initial qualification on the airplane. I had flown the MD-80 before – in fact, had over 2,000 hours in it. But, I hadn’t flown it for four and an half years, so I was handled the same as someone who had never flown it before.

I hope all this may help to put peoples’ minds at least somewhat more at ease. We do NOT just climb into the airplane (the way people do into cars) and start flying. There is a lot of training and evaluation involved.

Best to all.

Steve

LEARNING TO DEAL WITH REASONABLE RISK

Others who work with flight anxiety base their work on telling people how
safe ...   more »

Since yesterday's newsletter, a few people have emailed or posted on the
message board that this information has destroyed their ...   more »