Great Ideas at the Time

Jim Davis has a passion for instructing. He has been training civil and military pilots, in the air and on the ground for 50 years. His other passion is writing, which he studied at Curtin University in Perth. You can see, and buy, his two pilot text books PPL and Flight Tests at www.jimdavis.com.au

It’s amazing what mischief you can get up to when you are young and far from those who would guide and discipline you. No more instructors, no more Old Piet to fire me every second week and no more Zingi with whom to discuss my shortcomings as a pilot, and as a part of the human race, for which he believed my membership was barely valid.

Those finger-wagging restrictions were a thing of the past. Now I was a seasoned commercial pilot with over 300 hours and a brand new Cherokee 235 with which to play. My boss expected only that I transport he and his customers safely and smoothly to their required destinations. I had no other duties. Heaven.

Of course, I was too inexperienced to understand how little I knew. I had fallen headlong into the Dunning-Kruger whirlpool. Briefly, these two gentlemen state the less you know about a particular subject the more you think you know. And only those who are well versed on the matter realise how little they actually know.

I was on the doorstep of the most dangerous part of my flying career. Fortunately, Lady-Luck held my sticky hand for the next couple of thousand hours, while I did some of the stupidest things imaginable … starting pretty much straight away.

Here's an example. Remember I said I