Could the avg ME pilot fly a SE ILS to minimums?

[avbug]

A wise man once said, if you don't think you're the best at what you're doing... you're in the wrong business.

No, that's arrogant, not wise. You should feel that you're dedicated at what you do, you should be serious about what you do, and strive to be as professional as possible. But when you start swaggering about and tossing bravado around like cheap champaign, claiming to be the best, you only endanger yourself and others.

It's not about being the best. It's about being professional, and safe.

Don't think for a moment that the navy has the corner on firehoses. You're being offered a position for which you're very fortunate, and you're doing what's necessary to get through it. Everybody trains, everybody gains experience, and in the bottom analysis, you're no different, and certainly no better, than the next.

Remember that, or it WILL kill you.

 

[mattpilot]

Current don't mean competent. Six approaches in six months? Even if you spaced them out and did one every 30 days isn't enough to be really competent. Once a week maybe. Donning flame suit......

Why do 6 approaches? Just do an IPC - that only requires 2.

 

[100LL... Again!]

My opinion is that a little over half would be able to pull it off. (Speaking of non-professionals, of course).

And of those that make it, most will be at least 1/2 scale more than once.

They will find the runway, but it won't be pretty.

 

[RJP]

Rumple's got a point. This thread has turned into the "look how great I am by flying a partial panel NDB on my checkride" thread. McPat, were you arrogant before you made it to navy flight school or did they instill that there?

 

[Vector4fun]

Yeah, I used to fly partial panel NDBs for fun too, in actual, when I was a busy CFII averaging about 6 hrs a day, every day, in 5 different model aircraft. I'd have no business doing so nowadays. I fly maybe an hour a week or so now. But based on my own observations of the typical "weekend" pilot, most will need a lot of help when dealing with a major system failure in IMC. Many would find it difficult to park a C172 in less than 2000' on a sunny day without a 20mph headwind.

A world of difference between somebody who does it 5-6 hrs a day vs somebody who does it 5-6 hrs a month. I know it, and I'm in the latter group now.

 

[avbug]

I've always been a little arrogant, but I can back it up with my flying.

That is EXACTLY the attitude that will get you killed.

Good luck with that swagger. Hopefully it doesn't throw your back out.

 

[srjorion]

I've always been a little arrogant, but I can back it up with my flying.

Every single pilot that I have come across in the Navy that has had that attitude has been a below average pilot. To say they sucked would be an understatement.

Patmack, confidence has absolutely nothing to do with measuring your skills against the next guy. I have a lot of confidence in my abilities, A LOT OF CONFIDENCE, but I definitely don't think I'm better than everyone else. Yes, there are guys I think I am better than, but I also know some guys who are twice as good as I am. I have never heard any of the guys I look at as much better than me compare themselves to everyone else. They are great pilots that are humble enough to know they don't need to go puffing their chests out.

Are any instructors out there from this guy's squadron reading this crap he's putting out? I guess we must give him credit for finally getting rid of that gay avatar of himself. Are camera's even allowed in that TRAWING's aircraft without permission?

 

[srjorion]

... but my point is that if don't think you're the best/try to be the best at what you're doing.. why walk?

Whoa, you never said anything about "trying" to be the best in your previous post. You simply talked about thinking you are better than the next guy. Two totally different subjects.

I try to do MY best every flight. I don't care about being THE best because you can never quantify that. Some guys are better at some things, others are better at other things.

How would you determine who THE best is? Oh, I know, we can have a competition, complete with trophy, oh, and then make a movie about it! We can even have cool call signs, guys wearing cowboy hats with flight suits, and gay vollyball scenes. And after we find out who is the winner everyone can get orders to go shoot down F-5s painted like the Russians and have a happy ending.

If you want to think you are the best and it helps you be a better pilot then more power to you. I would suggest you keep it to yourself though.

 

[avbug]

Some of us don't bother trying to measure anatomy in the cockpit, and just fly professionally.

But maybe that's asking too much.

Put me in a room with 50 other pilots, and tell me that after one eval flight 25 are going to be phased out, and I'm going to get everybody together for a study session in the hopes we can all do our finest, and do my darndest to help anybody who needs or wants it. Then I'm going to go fly, and not give a whit about "who is the best."

You know...do my job.

That kind of thinking, "who's the best," is childish and melodramatic, and is best left to Tom Cruise on the silver screen...certainly it has no place in a professional cockpit. Military or otherwise.

I don't see pilots in the cockpit with me or in the air nearby as competition. They're team mates; we're all working for the same team, for the same goal, and seeing who is best or trying to think in those terms can do no good.

I'm good at what I do. But in the grand scope of things, probably average. Soome of the finest pilots I've known are dead, and I'll never have the chance to be the "best," or outmatch them...not would I dishonor their memory by trying. The best I can ever hope for is stay tense, stay alert, and in the final analysis the best I can hope anybody could say about me in retrospect is that I've acted as a professional.

If you want to be the best, be the best father you can be. Be the best samaritan you can be. Cut notches in your bible if you make more three wires than the next guy, if it strokes your boat. But there are much greater things in life to worry about being the best at...and every one of them has only one competitor; yourself. Measuring yourself up against another is something we mostly outgrow somewhere around the sixth grade...

 

[slowto250]

Pat,

It is certainly OK to have a high opinion of yourself. It's when you share that opinion that the trouble starts.

Reminds me of that old line: "But, I'm tired of talking about myself, you talk about me for awhile."