Overconfidence

Overconfidence in others also leads to complacency. Jeff will share his experience as an instructor pilot, where overconfidence had a potentially disastrous outcome.

“Speaking of letting your guard down, especially for instructor pilots, you’ve all heard the ‘It’s the good student who will get you in trouble.’ When I was a T-37 instructor pilot in Williams Air Force base, which has long since closed, I had a student who was just outstanding. I knew this kid was going to sail through T-37, he was gonna sail through T-38 and go off to the assignment of his choice.

“We’re in the pattern route one day, and it's time to turn crosswind and he's flying. Now to put this in context, this is back when the movie Top Gun was out and was very popular. When he goes to turn crosswind, he gets very aggressive. He snaprolls the airplane into 135 degrees of bank and starts to pull. And he says, ‘Yeeha - Jester’s dead!’ I said he’s got just a second to make this right or I'm taking the jet.

“Of course in the split second, where nothing good happens, I took the jet, and did a reversal using some rutter to get the airplane back upright. But now we’re pointing at a 45 degree angle towards a golf course, and all these golfers are looking up at us, heading towards them. I'm thinking to myself, they need to get out of the way, because I need a place to crash. We managed to recover obviously before we hit the ground because I'm here to tell the story, but complacency with a good student can also get you killed.

“Never assume, even with a good student, that everything they do is gonna be correct. I got complacent, assumed this kid was moving right along. If you ever hear a student yell ‘Yeeha - Jester’s dead,’ he's either stuck in the past or trying to kill you. One or the other.”

For the full audio podcast, listen to “Complacency in Flight,” on our front page.

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