Reflection

One thing I have always been good at is self-reflection. To be honest it is one of the reasons I started this blog. Originally I thought about just writing a diary to jot down my thoughts after each flight but in a fit of ego I decided to publish. At the time there were a few pilot blogs that I enjoyed reading and I figured I could maybe add to the pool.

It often takes me a day or so but eventually I organise the incoherent mess of neural connections that I make each flight into a useful set of thoughts.

I pride myself on my honesty, both in the cockpit and on this blog. I’ve no interest as coming across as a hot shot wannabe who sailed effortlessly through her training. This has always been a warts-and-all account. I don’t care if it’s taken me an age to master stuff that comes so easily to others. Most people didn’t start from the point of utter and abject fear that I did. It’s like an arachnophobe getting a job as curator of spiders at the local zoo. Yes, it’s a job but every day they turn up for work is a reflection of their achievement.

I also like to think that I’m extremely receptive to feedback. I take it in, internally process it and act on it to the best of my ability. I was incredibly interested in what TOI had to say, bearing in mind he’d never flown with me before and certainly had no idea of what I was like when I started this endeavour.

I don’t think I disagreed with anything he had to say. He was careful and took the time to explain to me the rationale behind every piece of feedback he had.

He has no vested interest in stoking my ego; he is being completely 100% honest about what the examiner is looking for.

For example we were talking about my forced approach (Yay, made the field this time!). He questioned that fact that he hadn’t seen me do a cause check in an attempt to resolve the issue. Now I’m fairly certain that I did and was about to say so. Maybe if I’d been speaking to Bob, I would have said exactly that. And Bob, knowing my history of honesty, would have accepted that.

But I didn’t.

Because that’s not the issue here. I did the cause check, but it obviously wasn’t apparent to TOI that I did. So it isn’t a question of whether I did it or not. I need to work on making it blinding clear to the examiner.