Flying Life: I 'Feel' Fine
Keeping a long-term perspective amid short-term worries
Later that afternoon, I was giving a checkride to a visibly nervous private pilot applicant. “What are you so nervous about?” I asked him, in an attempt to help calm his fears. “I don’t bite.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
“It’s not that,” he said. “I’m just scared you might discover something I don’t know.”
“Try to keep a little perspective,” I told him. “Wouldn’t you rather I discover that you don’t understand enough about your aircraft, rather than you discover that you don’t know enough when the engine starts to run rough with your family on board?”
This guy needs to adjust his priorities, I thought. About two seconds later, the light bulb went off. The great teacher that is aviation showed me that, once again, I have so much to learn. Here I am preaching to this guy about keeping perspective when not two hours ago, I was the one worrying about whether my doctor would discover something that might keep me from flying.
We humans are woefully shortsighted. We just want everything to work out today, be it a medical exam or a checkride for that next pilot rating.Where was my perspective? Wouldn’t I rather the doctor discover something there, in the safety of his office, than I discover something 30,000 feet in the air? And why am I worrying about him finding something that might keep me from flying? Wouldn’t I be grateful if he found something serious that I might not otherwise have known about—something that could not only take me away from flying, but also take me away forever from those I love?
I know I am not the only one who feels anxious about the aviation medical process. I have friends who diet for weeks before their date with the doctor because they are terrified that their blood pressure or body mass index may be outside of acceptable limits. Also, as a designated pilot examiner, I can attest to the fact that more often than not, applicants are nervous, sometimes to the point of distraction.
What is it that has us so wound up? Pilots, as a whole, are supposed to be cool under pressure. Our ability to do so is what keeps us safe when overwhelming situations in an airplane might have the average Joe panicking. Granted, I understand that some people have a legitimate reason to be nervous about the medical exam. There are parts of it that feel unreasonable—umm, sleep apnea requirements. Others worry that the doctor or designated pilot examiner might be out to get them. But this seems unlikely. A doctor or examiner with that spirit would not be in business very long.
I think the real reason falls somewhere with the fact that we humans are woefully shortsighted. We just want everything to work out today, be it a medical exam or a checkride for that next pilot rating. We don’t want to be embarrassed by a checkride failure, even if that failure means extra studying that will make us smarter, safer pilots in the future. For those of us who live to fly, we don’t want to be told by a doctor that we might have to sit out while we focus on our health.
I wonder, though, 10 years from now, will we look back and see how that unpleasant “setback” might have saved us from something far worse? Will we be grateful for the things that we once considered failures? Here’s hoping we can learn to trust the process and remember that exams exist to keep us safe. Maybe instead of worrying before that next big test, we can try to have a more long-term perspective by keeping the end goal in mind—a lifetime of safe flying. At least that’s what I’ll be telling myself when I’m lying awake next year the night before my medical exam.
