Counting Demons

A number of months ago, I began looking over airline interview questions I had come across in an effort to prepare myself for whatever move I would make from my current position. Even while there was, and still is, not much on the horizon in the way of flying jobs, I have learned a few times over that a little advance preparation can go a long way.

If one were to look at the typical airline pilot applicant, they would likely find that most have thousands of hours of experience in their logbooks, gained over a number of years. Over these years and hours, those pilots would have become well adept at handling both normal and unusual situations, and would have come to gain an intimate knowledge of the rules, procedures and aircraft that they used to move people or cargo from point A to point B. While pilots would undoubtedly come into an interview with varying levels of proficiency, the largest unanswered questions would concern the applicant's personality and character traits. Interviews can still be very technical in nature, testing aircraft, regulatory and procedural knowledge, though most devote a large portion of time to determining not only what kind of pilot you are, but just as importantly, what kind of person.

With this in mind, I sit staring at my computer screen with a pencil and pad of paper, jotting down memories of my flying experiences that relate to each question. Many questions aim to determine the background of the applicant; what positions they have held, where they worked and for how long, why they got into a career in aviation, and are relatively easy to answer.
Other questions aim to determine what type of person you are, and how you handle difficult situations, and can be a bit more challenging.

Question Number 17 asks what my greatest weakness as a pilot is. A friend once told me that the best answer to this question is to confess to being a perfectionist; you can't go wrong.
I am sure many others have tread down this very path and beat this response into one that now means nothing. Whoever first came up with this in an interview gets full points, the rest of us are simply looking for an easy out. While I do consider myself to be a perfectionist, I would be fooling only myself if I were to believe that it is my greatest weakness as a pilot. Thinking that others could provide a more objective view of my weaknesses than I could, I turn and ask my girlfriend who is sitting on the couch behind me, what she considers to be my greatest weakness. Without a second thought or a moments hesitation, she responds; you dislike confrontation, that is one of your greatest weaknesses as a pilot.

In the six years that I have been earning a living flying airplanes, there have inevitably been times where despite my best efforts at diplomacy, confrontation was unavoidable.
As a pilot, I place the safety of a flight as my first and foremost responsibility, followed by maintaining the legality and finally the efficiency of the flight. While this is the generally accepted hierarchy of responsibility in flying, sometimes the order can get a bit lost in the routine of day to day operations. On a warm summer afternoon sitting at the flight school where I was working at the time, a woman called to book a discovery flight for her father. Discovery flights were designed to give prospective students a taste of flying a small aircraft, although quite often, those who we would bring up flying had no intention of pursuing flight training but rather, just wanted to go for a ride. Such was the case with this particular discovery flight. Since the other instructor working at the time had already had a flight earlier that day, this discovery flight was given to me. During the walkaround, I dipped the fuel tanks and discovered that the tanks were full, due to a earlier flight that had been cancelled. While full fuel tanks would not be a problem if only two people showed up for the discovery flight, a third person would put us overweight for take-off. I decided to wait until I knew how many passengers I would be taking up before making a decision as to what to do. I watched through the window of the flight school as my passengers pulled into the parking lot, counting the people as they got out of the car, 1,...2,....3. As the passengers walked through the door, I introduced myself to them, and presented the dilemma and my solutions. We could either delay the flight and remove some of the fuel from the tanks by siphoning out ten gallons, or I could take two passengers on a quick 15 minute flight, and then take the remaining passenger on a 15 minute flight afterwards. The passengers agreed that waiting to siphon out fuel worked best for them, so I proceeded to the ramp to begin defueling.

A coworker who had overheard my conversation with the passengers, stopped me and asked what I was doing. I explained the fuel situation and that I had given the passengers what I thought were the best options, and was now going to defuel. With a look of disdain, the instructor shook his head and asked why I was defueling. Thinking that perhaps I hadn't made it clear the first time, I explained again that if I were to take-off with the fuel that was on board, I would be overweight. Immediately after explaining myself a second time, my coworker made it clear he had understood quite well what I was saying, it was my reasoning that he was having trouble understanding. He reassured me that the plane would lift off the runway just as it had always done before, and that the little bit of extra weight would be unnoticeable. While I understood that the extra 50 or so pounds that I would be overweight at take-off may not have much impact on the performance, I knew I would be operating outside of the certified limits for the plane. If anything were to happen between take-off and landing, the extra 50 pounds of weight that seemed so trivial now, could potentially have further reaching effects that I wouldn't be aware of until it was too late. I explained to my coworker that I wasn't willing to risk the safety of my passengers, especially considering the ease of either defueling, or splitting the passengers into two groups. Undeterred, my coworker pressed on in his attempt to convince me to go.

In an effort to put the issue to bed, I maintained that I would not take-off overweight, and conceded that while we both had opinions on the matter, now was not the time to discuss whether or not it was an acceptable risk. With that he relented, turned around and walked inside and I continued on with the defueling. After finishing the discovery flight I bid my passengers goodbye, and secured the plane for the night. With my work finished, I sat back and thought about the events of the day.

With my co-worker already gone home for the night, I debated whether or not to confront him the next day. Although I knew I stood little chance of convincing him that taking off overweight was an unacceptable risk, my goal wasn't to convince him to change his mind, but rather to let him know that taking off overweight wasn't something I was going to sign up for.
The following morning I decided I would wait until the others in the office emptied out and then take the opportunity to speak with this instructor. As the morning slid by, and the office failed to empty out, I began to question the benefit of confronting my coworker. The more I though about the situation the more I came to the conclusion that this was a battle not worth fighting.
As the days and weeks past, it became easier to convince myself that confronting this instructor would accomplish little, although the reality was I simply did not feel comfortable doing it.

I have been fortunate to work in an industry where confrontation is sometimes required to keep everything above board. Since that time I have grown more comfortable confronting others when there is a need to do so and the more I learn the more I am beginning to see that the real art is, just as with any other tool, knowing not only how to use it, but just as importantly, when.