Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Sep 18

After nearly four years of no flying, I am again current to fly myself and passengers! 2.1 hours of instruction (over two flights) was enough to get me comfortable in the cockpit again, and my instructor signed me off for both my Biennial Flight Review and to rent aircraft from the flight school with no instructor needed to come along.

Getting back into a plane was a little weird after such a long absence…. I had to read the checklists very closely just to remember what certain things meant - even on the preflight - and I had to repeat several things because I had forgotten to do them… even though they were right there in front of my eyes, in writing, on the checklist!

I had a little trouble starting the engine on the first flight, but the second went smoothly. It didn’t feel very real to me until I started doing maneuvers - specifically steep turns - on the first flight. Once I felt the extra Gs of steep turns though, It started to come back to me pretty quickly. The first landing since October of 2003 was a little ugly - picture a dollar sign ($). The straight line is the runway and the S is the path I was flying the plane trying to land… It didn’t help that it was also at night!

The second flight we did mostly touch and goes at a small airport to the south of the field we departed from - and I started to get my bearings back on landings. By the end of the second flight, my instructor was pretty much staring out the window as I did all the flying and radio calls.

Finally! I’m ready and raring to go at this thing again… I even feel like I’m a better driver when I’m a current pilot.

Anybody interested in helping pay for flight training? I’ll put up a PayPal donation button soon… and tell people about this blog! Every little bit helps.

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Sep 1

Quick blurb today:

I was attending a “brown bag” session about communication once, and we were doing an activity to illustrate how, often, what one says is not exactly the same as what someone else hears:

The “Explainer” has a sheet of paper with a fairly simple drawing on it (ours was a rabbit in a hat). This person must instruct the “Drawer” on how to draw the picture without giving away what the picture is - in other words, the explainer will instruct, line-by-line, how the drawing is made up, like so: “Start with a straight, horizontal line at the bottom of the page. Now draw two vertical lines, each starting at the end of the horizontal line and going up, about the same length as the horizontal line, and each vertical line the same length.” and so on and so on until the picture is complete (or the communication has broken down so badly that the picture is unfixable!).

It was a neat exercise, but the most interesting thing was that, as the exercise was being explained to the “Explainer” and the “Drawer,” there was a misunderstanding on the part of the “Drawer,” and the Director of Training said, “She might be a good communicator, but she’s not a very good listener!”

WHAT!?!

Communication is not just about talking! 50% of communication must be about listening - it’s a part of communication! If you’re not a good listener, by definition, you can’t be a good communicator!

So I’ve decided that we should have a mini-course on communication on the Aviation of Business blog!

Stay tuned for it!

Fair Winds,
Andrew