Notices
Flight Schools and Training Ratings, building hours, airmanship, CFI topics

Intuition

Old 10-30-2013, 09:08 AM
  #1  
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
 
Joined APC: Sep 2013
Position: PA-18, Front
Posts: 187
Default Intuition

INTUITION
The womb of "arational" thought

excerpt


...

Meanwhile, in another corner of the world, in another era, an Air Carrier pilot with a hundred hours on type (of equipment) is inching forward in the lineup for his fifth and last takeoff of the day. He is tired; the visibility is one mile in light snow. He runs his wipers every so often to clear the snow-turned-to-water form his windshield. There is a light crosswind; the runway friction index is slowly deteriorating but is still well within Company limits for his fully loaded airplane. He pulls out his Holdover Chart, scans the night sky, looks at his watch and notes, he has eight minutes before the anti-icing fluid covering his wings will turn to slush. Under subtle pressure to get the last flight of the day out, he turns the corner in the line-up. He is second in line for departure. He holds an inventory of his operational assets and liabilities. Every variable of his operation is within limits; there is not a single no-go factor. Yet his gut is trying to tell him something. He sets the parking brake and just stares at the windshield and follows the water droplets zigzag all the way down where they join a tiny river that flows towards the bottom corner of the glass, carrying the occasional stubborn snow crystal that refuses to melt. What is he doing?

Effective decisionmakers appreciate both the limitations of reasoning and the value of their gut feelings. They realize that, in the absence of certainty, reasoning has little value: they must seek guidance elsewhere. They also know that such guidance exists; that it is a divine gift to all of humanity, always at our finger tips but forever out of reach of the greedy. Over the years, they have learned that, whenever certainty is less than assured, it is pointless to force answers. So they go for a walk.
...

So what is the pilot doing at the threshold of the departure runway? Is he daydreaming? On the contrary: he is making a conscious effort to control his thinking. He is stimulating his common sense; he is unloading his mind; and he is expanding his mental field. In brief, he is doing what decisionmakers do for a living: he is taking a mental walk.

Now that we know what he is doing, we can ask,
what is he expecting? Those who have flown the line for many years, especially as pilots-in-command, or held billets where difficult decisions had to be made daily, know exactly what the pilot is expecting: he is expecting his gut to talk to him. He is expecting his intuition to produce an insight into his situation and a judgment he can incorporate into his go/no-go decision.

Inspiration, ideas, revelations, insight, judgment, these oft-elusive butterflies of the mind have contributed more to Man's evolution than any other mental faculty. And yet the voices that guide us to innovation and in deed, mere survival, the subconscious mental activity we call intuition remains generally discredited by our industry. Although the products of the pilot's intuition are vital to his success, intuition itself is seldom acknowledged as an essential faculty pilots need to appreciate.

___________

Tritten, James J.,
Intuitive Combat Decisionmaking, Marine Corps Gazette, Quantico, Virginia, USA, April 1996, 29-31. Dr. Tritten is a special adviser of Naval Doctrine Command. He is author of the recent [April 1996] technical report on Navy Combat Leadership doctrine development: Navy Combat Leadership for Tomorrow: Where Will We Get Such Men and Women? Dr. Tritten emphasizes the values of intuition, gained from study and experience in decisionmaking under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty. His sources reveal that the highest levels of responsibility in an organization coincide with the highest levels of "NT" (intuitive thinking), (Ref. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). He also argues that "intuitive decisionmaking should complement, not replace, traditional analytic approach".

(G.N. Fehér, Beyond Stick-and-Rudder, Hawkesbury, 2013, p. 112, 114, Bibliography)

Last edited by 9780991975808; 10-30-2013 at 09:19 AM. Reason: punctuation
9780991975808 is offline  
Old 10-30-2013, 11:06 AM
  #2  
KC-10 Crew Dawg
 
Montey's Avatar
 
Joined APC: Oct 2013
Position: Student
Posts: 79
Default

Originally Posted by 9780991975808:1510215
INTUITION
The womb of "arational" thought

excerpt


...

Meanwhile, in another corner of the world, in another era, an Air Carrier pilot with a hundred hours on type (of equipment) is inching forward in the lineup for his fifth and last takeoff of the day. He is tired; the visibility is one mile in light snow. He runs his wipers every so often to clear the snow-turned-to-water form his windshield. There is a light crosswind; the runway friction index is slowly deteriorating but is still well within Company limits for his fully loaded airplane. He pulls out his Holdover Chart, scans the night sky, looks at his watch and notes, he has eight minutes before the anti-icing fluid covering his wings will turn to slush. Under subtle pressure to get the last flight of the day out, he turns the corner in the line-up. He is second in line for departure. He holds an inventory of his operational assets and liabilities. Every variable of his operation is within limits; there is not a single no-go factor. Yet his gut is trying to tell him something. He sets the parking brake and just stares at the windshield and follows the water droplets zigzag all the way down where they join a tiny river that flows towards the bottom corner of the glass, carrying the occasional stubborn snow crystal that refuses to melt. What is he doing?

Effective decisionmakers appreciate both the limitations of reasoning and the value of their gut feelings. They realize that, in the absence of certainty, reasoning has little value: they must seek guidance elsewhere. They also know that such guidance exists; that it is a divine gift to all of humanity, always at our finger tips but forever out of reach of the greedy. Over the years, they have learned that, whenever certainty is less than assured, it is pointless to force answers. So they go for a walk.
...

So what is the pilot doing at the threshold of the departure runway? Is he daydreaming? On the contrary: he is making a conscious effort to control his thinking. He is stimulating his common sense; he is unloading his mind; and he is expanding his mental field. In brief, he is doing what decisionmakers do for a living: he is taking a mental walk.

Now that we know what he is doing, we can ask,
what is he expecting? Those who have flown the line for many years, especially as pilots-in-command, or held billets where difficult decisions had to be made daily, know exactly what the pilot is expecting: he is expecting his gut to talk to him. He is expecting his intuition to produce an insight into his situation and a judgment he can incorporate into his go/no-go decision.

Inspiration, ideas, revelations, insight, judgment, these oft-elusive butterflies of the mind have contributed more to Man's evolution than any other mental faculty. And yet the voices that guide us to innovation and in deed, mere survival, the subconscious mental activity we call intuition remains generally discredited by our industry. Although the products of the pilot's intuition are vital to his success, intuition itself is seldom acknowledged as an essential faculty pilots need to appreciate.

___________

Tritten, James J.,
Intuitive Combat Decisionmaking, Marine Corps Gazette, Quantico, Virginia, USA, April 1996, 29-31. Dr. Tritten is a special adviser of Naval Doctrine Command. He is author of the recent [April 1996] technical report on Navy Combat Leadership doctrine development: Navy Combat Leadership for Tomorrow: Where Will We Get Such Men and Women? Dr. Tritten emphasizes the values of intuition, gained from study and experience in decisionmaking under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty. His sources reveal that the highest levels of responsibility in an organization coincide with the highest levels of "NT" (intuitive thinking), (Ref. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). He also argues that "intuitive decisionmaking should complement, not replace, traditional analytic approach".

(G.N. Fehér, Beyond Stick-and-Rudder, Hawkesbury, 2013, p. 112, 114, Bibliography)
That was really well written. Thank you for that
Montey is offline  
Old 10-30-2013, 08:42 PM
  #3  
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
 
Joined APC: Sep 2013
Position: PA-18, Front
Posts: 187
Default

Originally Posted by Montey View Post
That was really well written. Thank you for that
Thank you for your feedback, Montey.
9780991975808 is offline  
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
USMCFLYR
Safety
118
03-27-2014 11:02 AM

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Thread Tools
Search this Thread
Your Privacy Choices