INSTRUCTORS COLUMN BERNARD ECKEY
Bernard Eckey has recently published Advanced Soaring Made Easy and has many useful tips and advice for fellow glider pilots.
WHAT DID I LEARN TODAY?
Imagine driving home after an enjoyable flight and a nice day at the gliding club. If you are young and restless you are probably thinking of the next party or a good night out with your friends. If you are family orientated you are probably looking forward to a relaxing evening with the rest of your family. That’s all very well and quite normal, but if you really want to make progress in gliding you should find a few minutes to ask yourself: “What did I learn today?” Hopefully I get no argument from you when I say that gliding is first and foremost a mental sport. It follows that we need to focus on our mind if we want to improve as pilots. During the day we have probably done a lot of things – some of them were done well and some we better forget – right? WRONG! Making mistakes is a very effective way of learning, as long as we reflect on it and work out how to avoid a repeat. It is often said that humans learn from the mistakes of others but there is no question that we learn even better from our own mistakes. The same holds true for positive experiences. When we have done something very well we tend to remember it for a long time and cherish the experience. That’s fine as long as an evaluation takes place and something is learned from it. The real secret for successful people is that they not only preplan their action but also analyse it afterwards. This guarantees continued improvement and comes in very handy when a similar situation arises in future. That’s what experience is all about. Only by reflecting on positive as well as negative experiences can we expect future improvement. Or, put differently, learning from a mistake can turn a negative experience into a positive one. 40
April 2009
Let’s look at a few examples now. A new post-solo pilot might have done two consecutive circuits while his friends climbed away for lengthy soaring flights. Now, our new pilot has two options. He can put it down to misfortune (and forget about it) or he might realise that he relied on good luck rather than good management. Perhaps he did not identify likely thermal sources and he might have failed to search for lift slightly downwind of thermal triggers. His two circuits have served no purpose if the pilot erases them from his memory. However, they can change his gliding career forever if the right conclusions are drawn and the same mistakes are avoided in future.
