I assume you mean "Locus of Control".


Everybody has some of both. My outlook would be that pilots need to have more internal locus of control.

External locus of control actually has it's place... some things you simply cannot control or influence, and it's counter-productive to worry about them.

"grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other through"


Meditation? Meditate on airplane flying scenarios while remaining calm and contemplative?


You're a military officer, there are resources there, and you've been exposed to some in training. But you might need practice more than you need theory on this. I have a friend (also mil) who was terminally shy. He did Toast Masters to develop his level of comfort in being the center of attention in a leadership role. I only knew because he told me, so it seemed to work.


That's checkride-itis. Try hard to focus on what actually needs to be done, based on your assessment. Not what the examiner thinks. Modern LOFT/LOE training allows for variations in method. Entirely possible and likely than an examiner will debrief something he didn't like but he's not likely to actuall fail you on those unless it was a gross safety error. Also you can screw up a variety of minor things, recover and still pass. True for any checkride but especially LOE format.



I'd agree. You've flown multiple types.

 

I’m sorry to hear all of this, it’s unfortunate but you have a really good attitude about it. Glad to hear your back in the saddle at a 121 carrier. You’ve received lots of real good advice here. There’s a few things I’ll suggest, and some may sound kind of silly, but I think may be a large part of the problems you’ve been experiencing. While I’m not a captain yet, I’m getting close to it. Here’s how I look at it. Captains aren’t made when they move to the left seat. Captains are made when they are in the right seat. Each and every day you fly as an FO, go over some things that YOU would do if YOU were the captain. It may or may not even be what the captain did in a particular scenario or situation. But prepare yourself as much as you can with decisions you would implement if your were in command. When you get to the hotel each night, do an ‘after action review’ on what kinds of problems you ran into as a crew on the day’s flight, and think about the things you would do. But don’t overthink it though. You do this each and every day, I think it will make a huge difference in calming the nerves because your preparing your mind to be in command mode, and not just passive mode.

Don’t be afraid to get a little ‘assertive’ with your captains either. Now, I’m not saying to be anti authoritative towards the captain lol, rather, speak up on suggestions to something that you think may be better than what the captain decides on. An example would be the other day, we were number 12 or 13 in line for takeoff. Due to wx closing off the departure routes for several southbound departures, we ended up getting stuck behind several of these southbound departures while they were getting rerouted. A few aircraft in front of us were requesting an intersection departure from intersections that aren’t normally used on a typical day when the line isn’t held up. If they could squeeze by the large jet in front of them, they would accept a clearance for an intersection departure. I saw several other RJ’s doing this, and realized we would have a huge advantage on getting out a lot quicker vs waiting for the front of the line to continue moving. The rj in front of us took off at the intersection next to them. At this point i noticed the captain didn’t seem like he was interested in doing that. But I thought, if I were captain, I would run some numbers for that intersection to see if we could do it, and if we can, we’re going. So I asked the captain if he wanted me to run numbers for our T/O data and if we could do it, to ask the controller if we could take the runway at this intersection. Because I don’t feel like waiting another 20-30 minutes for the heavy’s in front to take off. He said yea go ahead and run some numbers and while I was doing that the controller started clearing the #1 aircraft in the front for takeoff so we continued. But it was worth a shot, and each time I’ve done this with suggestions to the captain it helps to build my command confidence.

It sounds to me like a confidence issue, no doubt. I think a lack of PIC experience doesn’t help either. But you can overcome that with suggestions mentioned from everyone here.

It also sounds like you’re more introverted. That’s not a bad thing, at all. I myself am very introverted. Sometimes I feel like I’m the most introverted dude in the room. I can kinda relate to you on the issue with nerves hitting you, but not in the same way though. What I mean is, I can get kinda nervous in huge crowds of people or certain social situations. However, you put me in a room for a knowledge validation, or in the sim for an LOE/MV, I can calm myself pretty well. I can knock it out of the park. I look at evaluations as just another flight. I just ignore the guy behind me doing the evaluating. Are there some nerves? Absolutely. But I have found I can better control them in evaluations. However, outside of these settings, I find myself sometimes getting a little nervous. Especially around super outgoing, high strung people that look like they’ve had like 5 of those 5 hour energy drinks. Or if there’s large crowds of people. I can get overstimulated pretty easily by too much social interaction or if it goes on for just a couple hours or so. This usually happens after a long day, and I haven’t slept as well, been slacking on exercising regularly, or, if I’ve had too much caffeine.

Which brings me to my next point. When I go into a checkride, I have a ‘no caffeine’ policy for myself until after the checkride. Your anxiety levels are already elevated for a checkride, why make that worse by drinking coffee or other caffeinated drinks which are known to raise anxiety levels in a lot of people? If you’re a heavy coffee drinker, or even drink just a little bit of it, and you do this on the day of checkrides, my recommendation going forward is to stop. Some may say that this is kinda silly to mention this. But caffeine can really, really affect the nerves in some people in certain situations. It really does. Whenever I go for an interview, a checkride, or whenever I’m anticipating being around a lot of people for an event or a social gathering, I will limit or even cut out caffeine completely. I notice that it definitely helps. I say this because when I’m on the job in day to day line operations, I drink lots of coffee lol. Like, a lot. Even when I’m well rested, I still find myself drinking it more than I should. But whenever I’m in the above mentioned situations, it doesn’t help me, so I drop caffeine.

All in all, it sounds like you’re aware that checkrides/evaluations are really triggering the nerves more than they should, but you aren’t sure how to manage that. This is all mental. It’s in your control. I know that’s easier said than done, but you gotta practice and prepare being the one in command and being in charge, not overthinking stuff, and go into your next evaluation as if it were a real flight, and not just a check ride. The more you look at it like it’s a ‘checkride’ and not another flight, the more the nerves will get hit.

 

Can you give us a bit more info about what happened with the guard and how your overall military training progression went? Did you attempt to upgrade or were you told not to bother?