Analyzing A Source

My quote is taken from a TedTalk video about the reasons why people should not be discouraged by the prospects or repercussions of failure and should instead strive to focus on their accomplishments instead. When the quote starts, she was giving a presentation on how many people had supposedly impossible dreams but achieved them very quickly. She said this to introduce the idea that many things are possible, but there may be many accidents along the way. Then she says "6 of the 8 Atlas Rockets blew up on the pad, after 11 complete mission failures we got our first images from space, and on that first flight we got more data than all the U2 missions combined" to solidify the idea that even genius scientists can make extreme mistakes when doing something completely new, but in the end they will eventually yield progress (4:20). This is relevant to my conversation because in becoming an airline pilot, I will be faced with many failures, be they not getting a particular job, not being able to learn/get a certification on my first try, or other kinds of failures that are largely out of my control, but if I want to be truly successful, ill need to look past that and focus on the end goal of being a pilot. I should learn from my mistakes, but I should put more emphasis on the net result than all the mistakes I made getting that result.

Interview Answers

Adam, I've got some answers for you.  I hope this fulfills your need.  

Rick Mladic

1. What kind of effects have you noticed that stress has on you and you're crew-mates' ability to perform their job and has it been a detriment to your health? 

During the course of my career, I personally encountered periods of high stress associated with job conditions, but they never created a lasting problem for me because I was always well trained to cope with the situations in which I found myself.  I learned to rely on my training and knowledge and was always able to manage the situations.  I have encountered pilots who had a harder time handling stressful situations.  In one particularly emergency situation, one of the pilots on the flight became so traumatized, that he was unable to relax in the cockpit after the event and had to retire from flying altogether.  On the same emergency flight, we had several flight attendants who quit flying after developing a fear of flying following the flight. 

Stress from off-the-job conditions can also affect crewmember performance on the job.  I knew a pilot who was going through a nasty divorce and he had a hard time concentrating on his job because he was so pre-occupied with the divorce proceedings.

2. Have you experienced fierce competition applying for jobs or trying to increase in rank in your company? Do you know if the amount of competition has stayed the same or changed since leaving your field?

At the time I was applying for my job at the airlines, there were many furloughed pilots available and looking for employment.  Competition was fierce, and I did whatever I could to stand out from the crowd.  I had a minor advantage in that I was actively flying a four engine jet transport aircraft in the Air National Guard at the time, so I had exactly the kind of experience for which the airlines were looking. 

As for increasing in rank or advancement of position, most major airlines today are unionized, and as such, advancement is regulated by the terms of a labor contract and seniority within the company.  When your seniority justifies an advancement to a higher position, you simply submit a “bid” for that position, and are awarded it.  There are no “merit promotions” for union pilots. 

On the other hand, there have been times in the past when the airlines hired pilots with little or no experience due to rapid growth and a reduction in the number of qualified pilots unemployed at the time.  It’s a very cyclical industry.  We may very well be approaching a time when there will be a shortage of pilots. 

3. Have you ever found that your workplace's demands encroached too much upon your home-life?
Being a commercial pilot puts a lot of stress on a marriage and your home life.  On average, over the course of my career in both the military and at the airlines, I was gone half of every month.  That meant my wife was a single parent for a good part of our married life.  Fortunately, my wife is a very competent manager of time and our home.  I have, however, known many pilots whose marriages have failed.  It is very important to go into this career with your eyes wide open and to be prepared for the hardships this career brings. 

The flip side, of course, is that during the other half of those many months, I was home, with no duties from my work.  No paperwork to bring home, no computer work to accomplish when I wasn’t in the cockpit.

4. Have you gained a new outlook on life because of your job?
I definitely have benefited from my travels around the world.  I grew up in the inner city in Chicago, and if I had stayed in Chicago in a job without travel, I would not have experienced the many cultures I did with my chosen career.  And I was able to instill in my children a love of travel and diverse cultures that endures to this day.

5. With much more automation being incorporated into aviation, do you feel that the new generation of pilot's may be replaced by computers in the next several decades?
To answer this question, I have to ask, “Would you fly on an airplane without a pilot?”  I don’t know anybody who has not experienced a computer bug, a crash, or a virus.  I don’t think the flying public would accept an airplane without a pilot.  I know I wouldn’t.  It may happen someday, but I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon. 

6. What was your overall experience working as an airline pilot? Do you look back on it as time well spent? Do you wish some aspects of your job could have been improved upon or done differently?
I loved my career as a pilot.  Are there things I would have changed about it?  Sure, but I think that would be the case in almost any career.  I provided many thousands of people with safe, efficient transportation over great distances for many years.  I always strove to perform to the best of my abilities, to provide the best service possible to my passengers and to my company, and I believe I succeeded more times than not. 

Ted Talk Summary

Dugan, Regina. "Regina Dugan: From Mach-20 Glider to Hummingbird Drone." www.ted.com. TEDGlobal, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2014. <https://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_humming_bird_drone#t-130397>

The aim of the video is for the speaker to be able to motivate the audience to challenge themselves and have no restraints when imagining the possibilities of what they can do, and how they should not fear failure. She starts this off by asking the audience questions like "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?", and then once she gets the audience to scour their minds and think of the possibilities, she tries to shift the focus to them simply not having to fear failure because failure is a natural part of life. She then goes on throughout the video providing several examples of times when someone said something was impossible or highly unlikely and then being proved wrong very soon after, including how flight was thought to have been impossible for several million years only to be discredited two months later by the Wright brothers. She also tries to emphasize how failure should not be a deterrent because 6 of the 8 Atlas rockets ended in explosions, but the 2 missions that were successful were incredibly helpful in providing information and were building blocks for the space program we have now. She continues to provide examples of similar events, as well as other thoughts that are currently thought of as difficult to achieve, and fairly successfully manages to convince the audience of her aims.

Article Summary Redone

Casner, Stephen, Richard Geven, and Kent Williams. "The Effectiveness of Airline Pilot Training for Abnormal Events." http://hfs.sagepub.com. Sage Journals, 26 September. 2012. Web. 3 November. 2014 <http://hfs.sagepub.com/content/55/3/477>

My article talked about how there was an increase in pilot errors that ended up leading to accidents due to unexpected changes in conditions, and the ability for pilots to be able to react safely to those situations. However, the irony surrounding these situations is that many pilots already trained for them and should have known how to respond to them correctly, but for some reason sometimes they didn't and this led to disaster. To try and figure out why, researchers decided to not just test pilots on procedures they knew ahead of time that they'd have to perform, but on random and spontaneous situations that the pilots already practiced but didn't know they'd have to practice that day. They found that pilots passed the premeditated  situations with flying colors, but as soon as they started incorporating the unexpected situations the effectiveness of the pilots t respond safely and correctly started deteriorating. They found that when the pilots go in to have their ability to respond to abnormal events tested they are aware of what is expected of them, and focus solely on that, and don't  necessarily consider other events that may occur. The researchers also suggested that they way of preventing the predictability of these tests and the best way to reduce airline accidents is to provide more randomization when testing pilots to put more emphasis on knowing how to recognize the event instead of just knowing how to adjust accordingly.

Article Summary

Adam Sadek

     Malmquist, Shem. "Becoming an Airline Pilot." Jetcareers.com. Web. <http://www.jetcareers.com/becoming-an-airline-pilot.html>

     In his article, Becoming an Airline Pilot, Shem Malquist talks someone through the pro's and con's of being a pilot (specifically an airline pilot), while constantly making the readers ask themselves the question of do they have what it takes to become a pilot. He tries to argue that if you are willing to put in much hard work and effort into becoming a skillful pilot, as well as being particularly lucky, then you will have potential to be a successful airline pilot, but there is also a very high chance that you might not do anything too significant. Malmquist explores the extraordinary luck factor involved in the field, as well as the fierce competition there may be for only a few positions. He points out that these, along with a large technical knowledge of the various aspects of aviation, are issues that pilots may have to overcome. He initially shifts the focus from being about the coveted and amazing aspects of aviation, to being about the more realistic sides of aviation. In this he mentions that to an outsider, the most successful 5% of pilots may seem like they have easy, comfortable lives, but that that's only the tip of the iceberg. In all reality their success is built on a wild variety of factors, only some of which are in their control. He uses examples from his own company, as well as observations he's made in the industry throughout his career. He also provides much factual information and explains its relevancy in order to give a reader with no background knowledge a taste of aviation.