Picking pilots: Losing ground in finding the right stuff

By PAUL BREVARD

In the Oct. 3 issue of General Aviation News, Ben Sclair penned a Touch & Go column, “They don’t want to be pilots” on the introduction of the Airhart Sling, a highly intuitive advance in technology.

Online comments to the column lamented the disappearance of stick and rudder skills in deference to high-speed algorithms. The implication, of course, is that finding the “right stuff” is lost in the ozone created by more electronics than airborne expertise.

And now anyone can be a pilot, even those we may not want. 

General aviation used to be immune to the preoccupations and predilections of the crazed and rabid masses. We were in a different league, playing a longer game, entertaining a much smaller crowd, in a field found pristine and without guardrails.

But then, the outlier…

The Wrong Stuff

This guy was different. Wife-beater shirt, muscle-bound, and angry about everything and anything that came his way. He reeked of sweat and vibrated with artificial nervous system influence. He was at my shop to pick up his Mooney Rocket after extensive engine and panel modifications. 

A difficult man to say the least. But he was not yet a pilot, a fact I did not know until many years later. 

The here and now of it found him demanding, angry, judgmental, and devoid of aeronautical knowledge, which is why he traveled with a sidekick who did his best to calm him down.

He catapulted into the shop from my front office with the intention of flying the airplane out of the hangar. Not in the normal sense, but through the hangar doors, which he demanded be spread wide. 

The entire place came to a standstill while this volcano of a man vented and spewed insults and raged about costs until he coughed and spit, having worked himself up into a testosterone-oozing lather. 

Maybe the right thing to do was call the police or, perhaps, the hospital, but instead, we went flying. Crazy was not PIC, his partner was. I sat in the back wondering why I was even there. 

The flight was uneventful and the airplane performed well. Mr. Nutcase grumbled but paid his bill.

Afterward, I reflected on how we can keep violent personalities from an activity that demands cooperation and discipline, like in a traffic pattern at a non-towered airport.

What’s to prevent guys like this from bulldozing their way through a pattern you’re trying to negotiate?

And maybe the best question is how do we wash out the nut jobs before they even get there?

Washing Out the Nut Jobs

That’s a good question and the military has an answer: Test and test often.

The military isn’t about to spend $6.8 million to train a fighter pilot if he can’t quit beating up the gardener. And if social and marital concerns emerge, he won’t make it back to the ramp. 

The same can be said of airlines that rely on professionalism on the flight deck, not steroidal hysteria and adolescent impulsiveness. It is vital to preserving a company culture as much as it defines an industry by its levelheaded calm in the face of challenges to a successful outcome. 

In October 2000, Old Dominion University Research Foundation published a report, “Pilot Personality Profile Using NEO-PI-R” for NASA Langley Research Center.

It was based on a five category personality test given to 93 airline pilots who ranged in age between 23 and 65, with a median age of 42. 

The five tested categories were neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, and openness to experiences, which were further sub-divided into attributes to which responses were measured in a range between Very Low/Low to High/Very High, such as:

• Anxiety
• Anger
• Hostile
• Depression
• Impulsiveness
• Vulnerability
• Extraversion
• Gregarious
• Assertiveness
• Agreeableness
• Trust
• Straightforwardness
• Modesty
• Competence
• Dutifulness
• Achievement-Striving
• Self-Discipline
• Deliberation

The research found that the basic “pilot personality profile” is of an emotionally stable individual who is low in anxiety, vulnerability, anger, impulsiveness, and depression. This person also tends be very conscientious, scoring high in deliberation, achievement-striving, competence, and dutifulness. They also tend to be trusting and straightforward. Finally, they are active individuals with a high level of assertiveness.

For NASA, the NEO-PI-R is one tool in its arsenal to find the best people it can for missions requiring many of these very same attributes while engaged in demanding airborne situations. The same can be said of the military and airlines: Exceptional personalities provide exceptional outcomes. 

But it wasn’t always like that.

Consider this from “Training to Fly, Military Flight Training, 1907-1945,” by Rebecca Hancock Cameron. The book includes an anecdote from one pilot who was trained by Wilbur Wright after the Wright brothers were awarded a contract to supply two aircraft and two pilots to the military in 1909.

“On Oct. 5, 1909, we moved in, built a shed for the machine, set up the pylon and track, and Wilbur began our pilot training,” reported Colonel F. P. Lahm. “At the end of about three hours dual, we were turned loose and made our first solo flights. A few days later I was even considered qualified to carry passengers and did so, taking Lieutenant Sweet of the Navy as my victim for a flight around the field.”

In large part, early pilot selection was a matter of finding candidates foolish enough to take a job whose successful outcome was based on whether one survived the experience. No job description, no mentors, no consultants, no textbooks to speak of, and no old-timers to provide guidance and wisdom. 

But by 1911, the military began a deliberate overhaul of pilot training and of its hit-and-miss training strategy. By 1938, it hit its stride, which contributed to the blowback from the Army when General Henry “Hap” Arnold initiated the beginning of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) in the lead-up to World War II. 

In large part, the CPTP became the screening process for initial military pilot training, allowing the military to concentrate on what it does best. Before it was phased out after 1944, it had screened, trained, and processed some 465,000 pilot applicants and proved to be a vital tool for not just the war effort but for general aviation itself. 

A great deal was learned in the process about training and the idiosyncrasies around aerodynamics. It was an exciting time and pilot selection and training began to take on a less fatalistic characteristic and embrace a more academic approach to understanding what makes a good pilot.

The early stages of personality testing began, keying on factors such as intelligence, spatial speed, perceptual speed, personality, and a cache of far-reaching tools to measure dexterity and coordination. 

General aviation found its footing after the war, in barnstorming, mail routes, and county fair joy rides. It was a glorious mix of daredevil, boisterous bluster, romance, and monetary need. Suitability for the job was framed by pilot daring and the reaction from the crowd was its measure of pilot proficiency. Often enough, surviving a crash was the only talent needed and, for some, even that was not necessary. 

As the years progressed, streamlined versions of “pilot profiles” were developed for both military and commercial aviation, and personality testing became the standard.

A 2020 report from NASA notes that researchers found sociability, balance, self-assertiveness, and orientation towards actions and activity as successful characteristics of pilots.

Another research project examined pilots in the UK Army Air Corps and found those who pass training are more stable, extroverted, tough-minded, and independent than those who fail training.

Another report found three personality attributes that had a significant effect on pilot achievement:

• A high need for achievement
• A willingness to exert oneself and to face difficulties, and
• A self-identity that is able to take success in stride, to experience it positively without dissonance, at least in the context of challenges, missions, and special demands of the piloting profession. 

But general aviation did not require any formal pilot testing and the suitability of the applicant for training was largely dependent on his ability to add much needed revenue to the flight-school coffers. Nuisance personalities were tolerated until the applicant gave up or ran out of money. For some small mom and pop stores, the business model continues to exist.  

Making matters worse, general aviation manufacturers are in business to sell airplanes and marketing demands that the product appear easy to fly and abundantly safe. And it has done just that. 

Cessna, by way of example, built and sold approximately 192,000 airplanes since the first appeared in 1927, none of which were sold with the idea that the airplane was going to be a handful and you could get killed.

Quite the contrary: Ease of flight and automobile-like qualities begged the attention of the average Joe. 

But while its airplanes did prove easy to fly, actual flight requires some skills to be mastered that never made it to the flashy ads. In fact, the learning curve is steep for some applicants and self-preservation, while a good motivator, doesn’t always provide an adequate response to an inflight situation.

Some airplanes can bite, and some airborne phenomena can kill — little things left out of the advertising.

Learning to be respectful and humble in the presence of something that could send you crashing into a smoldering hole is a learned attribute, and learning comes at the expense of ego and invincibility. For some personalities, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. 

Now, however, ballistic parachutes, stall avoidance systems, heads-up displays, and a myriad of panel-mounted flight indicators ensure the lowest bar is met in qualification for pilot training. Today’s airplanes are easy to fly, simple to understand, and intuitive beyond measure. No experience necessary. 

In fact, Airhart Sling has announced you can master its version of the Sling TSi airplane with only one hour of flight training. The company says this because of its fly-by-wire technology and integrated and highly-intuitive flight systems that take airborne dynamics away from the pilot to be better managed by a computer. It’s not unlike cruise control and anti-skid systems in modern day automobiles or self-driving vehicles. 

As airborne engineers, applauding Airhart Sling seems like the right thing to do. What the company is attempting is quite an achievement, and the industry is better for its technological offerings.

And Yet…

But the crazies are still out there. Making it easy on them might make it terribly hard on us. If personality testing is optional, then magenta routes become new highways to be mangled by anyone with a bucket full of money and a hatful of rage. 

An old American proverb notes “If you don’t believe in cooperation, watch what happens to a wagon when one wheel comes off.” 

Hardly a day goes by when airport users fail to report some pattern infraction, poor airmanship manners, or a general, but very personal, example of air rage on short final. In a busy pattern, it only takes one goofball to loosen a wheel on the apple cart. If two are going at it, it’s a disaster in the wings. 

It’s not necessary to subject yourself to military training and indoctrination to acquire a pilot certificate and you don’t need to be particularly good at the hobby. But you do need, for the sake of your passengers and your fellow pilots, to be mindful of the value in cooperation and consideration.

Understanding personality testing and using those like NEO-PI-R, allow for assumptions to be made about you as a pilot. In the absence of testing, we all rely on your airborne behavior to provide a window to your suitability.

Try this. Rate yourself in NEO-PI-R’s pilot personality profile and see how you stack up. You’re not who you were when you were a humble student pilot. Furthermore, NEO-PI-R need not be considered a one-time snapshot of your personality. Refer to it often, especially after a particularly difficult flight. Highlight weaknesses and work toward remedial efforts. Frankly, it could be the very thing that protects us all from chaos. 

By the way, Mr. Nutcase finally did get his pilot certificate, about seven years after our chance encounter at the shop, but his disorienting behavior remained intact. Three years after working his way through a flight exam, he slid out of the bottom of a turn in a too-slow Beechcraft on a mountainous approach, taking two others with him in the catastrophe. 

It does no good to speculate, and assuming chaotic personalities leads to chaotic consequences is presumptuous at best. But must we accept that it is merely a coincidence? 

Writer Paul Auster is quoted as saying, in part, “We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence. But it doesn’t have to be. The use of and adherence to a pilot personality profile, even a casual acceptance of its worth, helps ensure that chance and coincidence is not part of any mission, whether flying to breakfast or gathering dust off the moon.”