AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2021 - 24

FLYING LIFE

Top of your game

BY NATALIE BINGHAM HOOVER

Lessons from elite athletes for flying your best

NATALIE BINGHAM
HOOVER refuses
to let anyone
badmouth the
airplane in the air.
She'd hate for it to
hear and then start
misbehaving.

24 | AOPA PILOT March 2021

IT IS SAID THAT SERENA WILLIAMS is tennis's most
superstitious player. She laces her shoes a certain way,
has her shower shoes brought courtside, and travels with the same bags to every tournament. Michael
Jordan famously wore his North Carolina practice
shorts underneath his NBA uniform for every game.
Superstitions and rituals are common in worlds where
the outcome doesn't feel entirely under human control.
As silly as these practices seem, they help reduce anxiety and add a little fun to a situation that can tend to
get too serious.
Maybe that's why we have so many of them in aviation. A flight instructor I used to work with always wore
his Schnauzer socks to checkrides to help him put his
best foot forward. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) Another pilot
friend must always have a stick of gum before she takes
off, " for the changing atmospheric pressures, " she says,
but I think we all know it's more than that now. Military
pilots for generations have painted nose art on their aircraft as a lucky charm before going into combat.
While we may not ever play like Williams or Jordan,
I like to think of us pilots as athletes of sorts. Flying, like
sports, demands a perfect harmony of mind and muscle.
It makes sense, then, that pilots might have a few things
to learn about our craft from our sports heroes. I'll admit
that superstitions may be somewhat illogical, but there
are many rational things top athletes do to make sure
they come out on top more often than their competitors.
Take care of your body. Tom Brady, NFL quarterback and six-time Super Bowl winner, has a meticulous
health care regimen that includes 20 ounces of electrolyte water every morning followed by a smoothie and a
workout, then a protein shake. No alcohol, gluten, dairy,
caffeine, or artificial sweeteners. That sounds like the
seventh circle of hell to me, but he's an aging athlete still
performing at peak, so he must be doing something right.
For pilots, physical health is extremely important,
especially with regard to fatigue and oxygen depletion.
That means seven to eight hours of rest, and avoiding
cigarettes. We also need our brains to function at high
levels, so the eight hours bottle to throttle rule may
not be enough for a flight on New Year's Day. Keeping
a healthy weight with diet and exercise is important,
too, but hopefully that's common sense for anyone who
has ever squeezed into the tiny cockpit of a Cessna 152.
Confidence wins ballgames. No talk of confident athletes would be complete without mentioning

LeBron James's 2018 Twitter post congratulating himself for reaching 30,000 career points before he actually
scored the points. Say what you want about the man, but
nobody dominates a sport by believing they are second
best. Many would argue that because he sees himself
succeeding, those dreams become reality.
The bottom line for us is that pilots who aren't
confident will not do well in stressful situations such
as checkrides, poor weather, or an engine failure.
When something goes wrong, they will expect to perform poorly and, therefore, end up fulfilling their own
prophecy. On the other hand, I flew with a guy on the
Beechjet who was more confident than anyone I've
ever been with in the cockpit. His trick was to chair-fly
the entire flight, from startup to shutdown, including
the taxi, takeoff-and, I'm sure, his greased-on landing.
Our minds are a powerful tool when used to our advantage, so if there's a maneuver or procedure you're not
comfortable with, do some studying, then go up with
an instructor to master it so the next time you're faced
with in-flight pressure, you will have the confidence to
handle the situation safely.
Practice makes perfect. Or rather " perfect practice makes perfect " for all you Lombardi fans out
there. Lindsey Vonn, four-time women's World Cup
championship skier, is in the gym year round, six days
a week, twice a day, for three to six hours a day. And
that doesn't even count the work on the mountain. She
does everything from biking for cardiovascular stamina and weight lifting for strength to physical therapy
for injury avoidance.
In the airplane, we always need to challenge ourselves. This means that even if you are on a VFR flight
in uncontrolled airspace, you can practice holding
your altitude within 50 feet. Just because you're in the
" off season " and not on a checkride is no reason to get
sloppy. Whenever I land an airplane now, I call out my
point of intended landing, pushing myself to hit a specific spot every time. I worked too hard to develop those
skills to see them degrade from disuse.
At the end of the day, flying an airplane or playing
a sport is usually not a life-or-death matter. We have to
remember that it's good to take our flying seriously, as
long as we don't take ourselves too seriously. So, if you
want to wear your socks with the bowtie-wearing pug
for all the important flights, more power to you. AOPA
myaviation101.com

http://www.myaviation101.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2021

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