Psychological Testing

More than a couple decades ago I spent many hours sitting in a room with a bunch of other wanna-be airline pilots taking any number of psychological and/or aptitude tests. For some reason the airliones thought it would be a good idea to test current pilots and use that as a baseline to select candidates that would fit an "ideal" airline pilot profile. Truth be told, the ideal airline pilot does not exist. Don't get me wrong there are thousands of wonderful and capable aviators out there as demonstrated by Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger when he turned an A-320 into a duck on January 16th. The ideal airline pilot is groomed over years of training and operations using established procedures. Not some drummed up psyco-median baseline statistic.

Whoa there Doug... Guess I had some pent up issues for that time. Anyhow take three hours and watch The Right Stuff and when you get to the medical portion of the movie you will understand my point.

So where am I going here. Actually it started last Friday when I did a checkride into a local airport around Dallas TX. It brought me back to those tests where there are questions like the following.

Q. What of the four answers do not go with the others?

     1.  Apple

     2. Peach

     3. Tire

     4. Banana

The image below is of a sign that was on the wall of the Fixed Base Operator at the airport we landed at. Typically these signs have the price of gas, oil and some mechanical services. I realized this sign was mostly oil prices. Yes those are per quart prices and the MBL JET II and BP 2380 are synthetic oils used in jet engine gearboxes. The LAV (Toilet service) and GPU (ground power unit) were logical and then WHAM! FORKLIFT $250. My brain jumps back twenty five years to a testing time with United Airlines when an individual got up in the middle of the testing and made the statement that this is "Bull $%@&". The rest of the group of maybe 50 candidates took a moment form their timed test to applaud the individual for his boldness. You see we all wanted that airline dream too much to realize... Oops, There I go again... Sorry

As it turned out I never got that "airline" job (or any other) and had I, there would have been a couple of furloughs over the years of driving a bus with wings. The European aviation consortium EADS (you can Google it if you have to know what the acronym stands for) F.K.A. Aérospatiale was not being kind to the airline industry when they gave the A-300 the name Airbus.

Looking back it is nice to see a path that was laid out before me yet unbeknown to me that would get me to a place where I can say I have enjoyed my aviation journey, turbulence and all.

Hey, I have carried on long enough... 

Cya tomorrow... Doug