Professional Development Centered Readings?

Boots2Wings

Boots2Wings

Just happy to be here.
Was listening to a podcast the other day, and it mentioned something rather concerning...the vast majority of doctors read less than one “Medical Study” or Scholarly Article per month, which strongly contributes to poor performance especially in diagnostics.

This got me thinking, what resources out there are pilot using (or neglecting) that could contribute in some small way to bettering ourselves? I read my AOPA stuff, which to be fair seem to only discuss really elementary topics (ie. Wake Turbulence is bad...) and I just feel, outside of the occasional accident reports, I am not truly developing my knowledge or skills as a professional.

So what do you guys recommend? Anything that requires no membership fees are a plus, cause well, I'm an impoverished Freight Dog.

As always, thanks!
 
Boots2Wings said:
Was listening to a podcast the other day, and it mentioned something rather concerning...the vast majority of doctors read less than one “Medical Study” or Scholarly Article per month, which strongly contributes to poor performance especially in diagnostics.

This got me thinking, what resources out there are pilot using (or neglecting) that could contribute in some small way to bettering ourselves? I read my AOPA stuff, which to be fair seem to only discuss really elementary topics (ie. Wake Turbulence is bad...) and I just feel, outside of the occasional accident reports, I am not truly developing my knowledge or skills as a professional.

So what do you guys recommend? Anything that requires no membership fees are a plus, cause well, I'm an impoverished Freight Dog.

As always, thanks!
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The AOPA articles are geared towards guys that fly so little they couldn't even tell you what Vy means.
The EAA is a little better with some nice stuff on mx side as well. Which I assume is pretty basic for an employed A&P.
I've not seen something geared towards above basic level stuff.
 
Just my humble opinion...

Flying the Line, Vols. 1 and 2.



Fate is the Hunter, Ernie Gann
Confessions of a Union Buster, Levitt

1583527213923.png
 
Hard Landing
Glory Lost and Found
Twelve Years of Turbulence

North star over my shoulder
Fate is the hunter - these two together to see how crap can be different at about the same time frame
 
ClearedForOption said:
Just my humble opinion...

Flying the Line, Vols. 1 and 2.



Fate is the Hunter, Ernie Gann
Confessions of a Union Buster, Levitt

View attachment 51735
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BigZ said:
Hard Landing
Glory Lost and Found
Twelve Years of Turbulence

North star over my shoulder
Fate is the hunter - these two together to see how crap can be different at about the same time frame
Click to expand...

Will have to read those then too. Starting with “Fate is the Hunter” since that seems to be the consistent favorite.
 
Boots2Wings said:
So what do you guys recommend? Anything that requires no membership fees are a plus, cause well, I'm an impoverished Freight Dog.
Click to expand...

Something I've seen throughout my career, which seems to be getting worse in recent years (or maybe I'm a grouchy old man noticing it more) is pilots' lack of ambition to look stuff up.

For all those times when some question comes up about an aircraft system, reg, certification standard, or whatever, so many pilots are like, "I *think* it's this way..." or "During initial training I remember the training captain said..." And that's all the further the discussion goes.

Sometimes I'll fly with an SIC who says another captain sternly told them to do XYZ for whatever reason. Half the time it's some random technique that may or may not matter. I tell the SIC that, when faced with such a situation, politely ask where that's published. Is it company SOP? A limitation in the AFM? From the AIM? Is there an advisory circular talking about it? Because, "I think it's a good idea," isn't enough.

Along the same line, do what you can to keep advancing within your operation. Try to become a training captain, check airman, assistant chief pilot, safety officer, etc. Being in those roles will force you to dig into reference material and expand your knowledge base no matter if you want to or not.
 
jrh said:
Something I've seen throughout my career, which seems to be getting worse in recent years (or maybe I'm a grouchy old man noticing it more) is pilots' lack of ambition to look stuff up.

For all those times when some question comes up about an aircraft system, reg, certification standard, or whatever, so many pilots are like, "I *think* it's this way..." or "During initial training I remember the training captain said..." And that's all the further the discussion goes.

Sometimes I'll fly with an SIC who says another captain sternly told them to do XYZ for whatever reason. Half the time it's some random technique that may or may not matter. I tell the SIC that, when faced with such a situation, politely ask where that's published. Is it company SOP? A limitation in the AFM? From the AIM? Is there an advisory circular talking about it? Because, "I think it's a good idea," isn't enough.

Along the same line, do what you can to keep advancing within your operation. Try to become a training captain, check airman, assistant chief pilot, safety officer, etc. Being in those roles will force you to dig into reference material and expand your knowledge base no matter if you want to or not.
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I appreciate your insight and words, and the majority of what you said is why I am trying to find these sorts of resources....i hate anecdotal evidence, “thats the way it is” responses, and skin deep understanding (on my own part).

Unfortunately opportunity for roles like that are pretty rare for the guys at my shop with less than 3 years with the company, and with limited need for many in those roles anyway, but I keep my name in the hat. I cant stand being complacent in my role, and not learning something new...and being primarily SP at a 135 I am reaching for things I can do so I do not fall into the doldrums of just signing for my plane and flying my runs....from what I see thats when good pilots make mistakes, and id realy prefer not to end up on another “Oh...” thread here.
 
bafanguy said:
Seagull:

airlinesafety.blog

Shem Malmquist FRAeS

B-777 Captain. Air Safety and Accident Investigator. Previous experience includes Flight Operations Duty Officer, Assistant Chief Pilot. Line Check Airman, ALPA Aircraft Technical and Engineering…
airlinesafety.blog airlinesafety.blog
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Digging through this now. Surprised I hadn't stumbled across this before, nor heard of the author. Thanks!
 
Boots2Wings said:
Unfortunately opportunity for roles like that are pretty rare for the guys at my shop with less than 3 years with the company, and with limited need for many in those roles anyway, but I keep my name in the hat. I cant stand being complacent in my role, and not learning something new...and being primarily SP at a 135 I am reaching for things I can do so I do not fall into the doldrums of just signing for my plane and flying my runs....from what I see thats when good pilots make mistakes, and id realy prefer not to end up on another “Oh...” thread here.
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You're right, for all the positives of doing single pilot freight work, nobody talks much about the risk of complacency. Years ago I flew for Cape Air out of the Midwest region and saw it big time. Single pilot in a 402, flying in and out of STL 88 times/month, I knew exactly what to expect like clockwork.

There's nothing wrong with being really freaking good at what you do though. To a certain extent you might have reached the best you can be for this point in your career.

It's like flight instructing. Part of me says, a good pilot is always learning, while another part of me says, "It's a freaking 172, this isn't rocket science, after 2000 hours doing this stuff, there's a point of diminishing returns."

On your next trip, ask yourself if you had to teach every detail to a new hire, would you feel solid? If not, what do you need to learn better? Or if so, cool, maintain that standard while you look for the next opportunity in your career.

When I taught instrument ratings as a CFII, I oftentimes asked the trainee, "What are the next two steps?" Could be anything...intercept the localizer, watch for the glideslope to come alive. Then I'd ask again later and it would be....watch for the glideslope to come alive, set flaps to 10 degrees.

The lesson wasn't to quiz them to death, it was to get them to always stay ahead of the game mentally.

Yet inevitably there'd be occasions when there truly is down time on a flight. In cruise on an IFR cross country, you really can sit back and chill before getting the ATIS, briefing the approach, blah blah blah. You adequately ahead of the airplane and there's no reason to rack your brain thinking of what to do next.

Metaphorically speaking, maybe you are in this phase of your career. If you're on top of things chilling for a bit is all you can do.
 
Boots2Wings said:
Was listening to a podcast the other day, and it mentioned something rather concerning...the vast majority of doctors read less than one “Medical Study” or Scholarly Article per month, which strongly contributes to poor performance especially in diagnostics.

This got me thinking, what resources out there are pilot using (or neglecting) that could contribute in some small way to bettering ourselves? I read my AOPA stuff, which to be fair seem to only discuss really elementary topics (ie. Wake Turbulence is bad...) and I just feel, outside of the occasional accident reports, I am not truly developing my knowledge or skills as a professional.

So what do you guys recommend? Anything that requires no membership fees are a plus, cause well, I'm an impoverished Freight Dog.

As always, thanks!
Click to expand...
I think what fits your bill right out of the gate is any number of FAA Advisory Circulars. They're not the funnest reads, but since you're drawing the parallel to scholarly articles I don't think you're looking for entertainment. Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators is also really great, but it is fairly academic in nature, and I don't know a whole ton of people who are going to just sit down and read it without some external motivation (technical i. I really actually enjoyed Glory Lost and Found. While it is primarily about Delta and business, about 1/3 or more is a pretty good history of the industry and focuses on history of other carriers. I'm going to read Flying the Line next.
 
Thank god. Someone cares!


I personally have found that learning more about math, engineering, and science has had some profound effects on my flying career. For learning about how to "be a better pilot" mix up your reading between technical manuals and flying books that are "interesting." Fate is the Hunter, Confessions of a Reluctant Messiah, and other classics are great to space out the monotony. There are plenty of old books on navigation. I learned a ton about astronomy back when I was a freight dog because I truly enjoyed looking at the stars as a blasted across the upper-midwest. That led to learning about celestial navigation and grid navigation, then leadership from books about folks like Shackleton.

My recommendation is not just to read about flying, read about a bunch of stuff and see if you can't correlate that to flying. The best book I've ever read about automation was "Digital Apollo" - which is a book about the space program. The best book I've ever read about leadership is "Shackleton's Boat Journey." The most enlightening book I've ever read about systems was actually a textbook about Process Operations - the systems used in an oil refinery are often like scaled up giant versions of what we use in our airplanes.

Also, learn all the regs. Nobody does this. Why? The feds will hang you with these rules, but nobody bothers to learn them. WTF?! Because I am familiar with them, people think I'm a wizard for some reason, it's like, "uh, no...this is part of your job?"
 
My professional development involves listening to the captain’s stories of life follies and trying not to repeat them
 
Overall though paint me surprised
There isn't as many books as I'd have thought there'd be in the world's most flying country
Or maybe I'm spoiled
We had a test pilot that, besides being a very good test pilot, wrote a number of great books both for kids and adults.
We had a line pilot from Siberia that wrote an awesome series of books. "Thoughts of a sled dog", "Memories of a sled dog" and such.
 
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