What Do They Know That You Don’t?

When I was first awarded my Private Pilot’s Licence, I remember one of my instructors commenting “Right, so you know just enough to kill yourself with now.” It was a not-so-tongue-in-cheek reminder that, as proud as I felt of my achievement, what I’d also done was open up the door to the next chapter. A chapter that would feel like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.

His sentiment was echoed by a very good friend of mine who had far more experience than I. “Before you reach your first 100 hours, you’ll do something that will either kill you, or it will scare you so much you’ll never do it again.” Such is the learning curve of aviation — it is a glorious and intolerant place to grow up. We learned fast, taking all the information we could get from any willing source deemed more experienced than us — which was mostly everyone within the surrounds of the airfield.

We learned from “war stories” told in the Flying Club bar. We learned from researching each new airstrip we flew into by asking as many others as possible who’d been there about their experience. When we “grew up” into professional licences and bigger aircraft, we learned from our captains and the examiners who conducted our flight tests. When I couldn’t take in let alone write down or repeat the taxi clearance given on my first landing into Johannesburg International Airport (ORT) the other pilot I was flying with repeated it back to the controller…