Frequency change: If you fly any aircraft with a radio in it, at some point, you’re going to have to do it.

ATC may instruct you to continue your flight on a different frequency, or you may request a frequency change yourself. Either way, normal protocol dictates that it be a mutual agreement.

Yet sometimes an unauthorized frequency change is necessary in an emergency to maintain CFR 91.3 pilot-in-command authority.

A Cessna pilot submitted a report to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System for just such a reason. He was conducting an instructional cross-country flight with two students on board when he experienced engine trouble shortly after takeoff. The plane was climbing through 2,000′, and Tower had already switched him over to Departure when the engine began to run rough.

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It used to be the one thing that distinguished humans from other animals: Our ability to make and use tools.

That was until videos appeared online of dogs opening doors with things other than their paws and birds dropping oyster shells on parking lots that a week earlier had been sandlots. Okay, so we’re not the only animals that use tools, but we still fashion better tools than other animals.

The Leatherman multi-tool is one I’ve seen many a pilot sport. Apparently, it’s so well loved it’s even found its way into reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System.

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I like to think I have great attention to detail — that’s a cornerstone of what makes me a good pilot.

My wife thinks otherwise. She can enumerate countless times when my attention to detail was lacking enough I forgot to buy a food item clearly written on the grocery list, left my damp laundry overnight in the washing machine, or returned home minutes after leaving to retrieve my phone by the door.

Missing an item happens to the best of us. But when a rudder fails due to somebody’s inattention to detail, it’s important to analyze what happened in that moment and how it can be avoided in the future.

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Fear is a lot like stress.

Anthropologists and other scientists will argue that human beings were designed to experience stress as a lifesaving response to an environmental factor — lions, tigers, or bears, for example.

Fear is the same thing. It’s built into us as a self-preservation agent. It helped keep us safe from predators and Mother Nature way back when we weren’t at the top of the food chain.

Now that we are, and we can protect ourselves from environmental dangers, fear is largely self-induced. What we fear drives our thinking and how we behave.

Most stress modern humans experience is based on self-imposed, generally unlikely fears. I researched the database for reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System related to “fear” to get a sense of what pilots are willing to admit.

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When I attended Long Beach City College in pursuit of my degree in Aviation, Professional Pilot, the department chair, Steven King, once said to me, “You’re going to make it to the airlines. You’ve got the right mindset.” I didn’t know what he meant. I just knew I would do whatever needed to be done to achieve that goal. 

“Mindset.” What a great word. Straightforward and direct.

One definition of mindset, taken from a Psychology Today article by Dr. Gary Klein, suggests that a mindset is “a belief that orients the way we handle situations — the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do.” 

Pilots quickly move from the relatively static, safe environment of land life into the dynamic, relatively dangerous flight deck environment once we step inside an aircraft. When it comes to mindset, we must possess a fixed mindset, but be able to adapt when needed.

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For three years in the 1990s, I co-chaired a committee that put on an annual airshow at Compton/Woodley Airport (KCPM) in California.

Actually, it was an “air faire” because 99% of the planes that flew in to participate were put on static display. A lone army helicopter always performed an aerial demonstration.

One year a private pilot offered to give kids free rides in his plane. Another year a local helicopter flight school offered free rides to kids.

Otherwise, the only reason a plane was in the air was because it was arriving for the festivities or getting straight outta Compton en route to a home field.

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There’s a moment in the 1998 film “Ronin” where Robert DeNiro’s character says to Jean Reno’s character, “Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.”

In their world of espionage, the ability to recognize true, inner self-doubt and then act on it could be the difference between life and death.

More than one flight instructor I learned from put it another way: “Trust your gut.”

It’s not just about trusting that you’re right. It’s about trusting your sense that something’s wrong.

Based on the following reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, many pilots have trouble acting on their inner self-doubt.

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