NPR Asks ‘What Makes a Good Commercial Pilot?’
Travel Blog • Rob Verger • 03.05.09 | 11:17 AM ET
Photo by Earlier this week, NPR’s Talk of the Nation asked, What Makes a Good Commercial Pilot? While the program began with a discussion of the casualty-free ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, the scope quickly broadened to include general factors that have influenced commercial aviation safety over the years.
I felt most fascinated by what a guest commentator on the show, John Nance, an aviation analyst and a former Boeing 737 pilot, had to say about how air travel has changed from its “golden age.”
“The revolution that we have had from about 1985 to the present day is very profound,” Nance said, “and is the very cause of the safety levels that we have now, and that is the fact that we fired Captain Kirk”—and by that Nance meant the old-fashioned, top-down style captain who might not thoroughly use a checklist—“we fired that individual, we took the left seat basically and said, ‘You will confirm to minimization of variables and to using checklists, and by the way, Captain, if you want to fly for this airline, you are going to create an atmosphere in which your first officer can and will always speak up to you, because one carbon-based brain isn’t enough.’”
Interesting, isn’t it? It’s tempting to glorify or romanticize the early days of air travel, when the industry had a frontier feel to it, but as a passenger, I’m thankful for the progress.
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Rob Verger is a frequent contributor to World Hum and the site's former air travel blogger. His articles and photographs have appeared in the Boston Globe and other publications, and he's a former undergraduate writing instructor at Columbia University. If you like, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or follow him on Twitter.
connemara accommodation 03.06.09 | 11:28 PM ET
yup its tempting..anyways nice post..