Experience helps to sharpen your instincts, and tells you when to pull the ejection handle. Sully Sullenberger, the heroic US Airways pilot, managed to land his airliner in the Hudson Bay after a flock of birds took out both of his engines soon after takeoff. In his book Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, he discusses the decision that fighter pilots (his earlier career) sometimes are faced with: whether to eject or not eject from a fighter plane. The decision comes down to when and if to “give up the ship.” Passengers on Sullenberger’s US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009, surely didn’t want him ever to give up on getting the airplane down safely (the equivalent of surrendering in war). Of course, he had no ejection seat, and even if he did, he had a crew and passengers that were his primary concern. But likewise, if you were sitting in the back seat of an F4 Phantom fighter piloted by Sullenberger during his Air Force career, you wouldn’t have wanted him to dilly dally (a technical flying term) in pulling the ejection handle that would set you both free. You would have been rooting for “optimum persistence”—sticking with it as long as it made sense. In other words, don’t give up the ship too early; don’t give it up too late. When the time is right (or perhaps, in this circumstance, it is better described as very wrong), you want Sully to quickly and ruthlessly pull the ejection handle. Accept the loss (of the multimillion-dollar aircraft, not your lives) and move on. By the way, when I was a freshman (also called squat or doolie) at the Air Force Academy in 1971-1972, Sullenberger was a junior in the same 18th squadron. He was soft-spoken and gave the freshman wads less of a hard time than most of his classmates. I was discharged after my sophomore year because of a minor heart condition (that luckily has not caused me any problem to date). Sometimes luck has a big impact on lifes directions. I was a much better trader than I ever would have been a pilot.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:27:25 +0000
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