Solve Problems Like an Air Force Pilot

**Special thanks to entrepreneur/yoga-teacher/blogger extraordinaire Jonathan Fields for his valuable input.

“I did a normal, tactical departure out of the airport and shortly after takeoff, I saw a bright orange flash out of the right window, followed by an explosion and the entire plane shuddered,” said Capt Steve Radtke, a co-pilot on a C-5 mission taking off out of Baghdad International Airport in 2004.  The crew performed an emergency engine shutdown, declared the emergency and returned for a safe landing shortly after the incident.

“We are trained for the worst-case scenario. It was great to see how everything we train to do actually works. I was impressed by how smoothly everything went,” Capt Radtke said.

Every year the U.S. Air Force spends hundreds of millions of dollars sending young officers through 13 months of incredibly intense flight training called Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT).  The basis of the course is to take a young person with little to no flying experience and turn them into a professional aviator, responsible for the defense of the country and the expensive aircraft they fly.  Ask most familiar with aviation and they will tell you, UPT does it’s job quite well.

One of the most stressful parts of the program is an exercise in problem solving called, “Stand Up.”  Students stand at attention in front of the entire class and flight of instructors and are given a mock emergency scenario, such as an engine fire.  They are then required to go through the proper steps in pain-staking detail of how they would solve the emergency and bring it to a logical conclusion (this could mean landing or ejecting from the aircraft depending on the plane).

At any point of the exercise if the student is found to be doing something unsafe or illogical he is told to “Sit down!”  This is the equivalent of failing.  If a student is doing well, however, he is told to “Take a seat.”  While it seems very similar, these words actually mean the student has passed the stand-up scenario.

In order to pass stand-up, there are some common procedures that all students must recite to start with word for word and then follow closely throughout the exercise:

1) Maintain aircraft control

2) Analyze the situation and take the proper action

3) Land as soon as conditions permit

It is these procedures that Capt Radtke of the C-5 crew, as well as thousands of other pilots who have faced emergencies of their own, follow in order to manage a highly complex and stressful situation without becoming overwhelmed and folding or making a fatal mistake.  While these steps are given to pilots as a guide they can be very helpful to anyone facing a tough problem when the stakes are high.

A quick look at how each of these steps helps in coming to the best solution:

1) Maintain Aircraft Control

It doesn’t matter how good you are at analyzing the situation if you crash into the ground in the process.  Maintaining aircraft control reminds a pilot that the #1 priority is keeping the aircraft in the air and as stable as possible.  If this step is forgotten the consequences are often fatal and airplanes crash when the emergency may have been solved quite easily.  Ex. a airline crew crashes their jet while fixated on a burnt out gear light in the cockpit.

This principle applies in almost any problem solving situation from saving someone’s life in the ER to keeping a start-up business alive.  Successful entrepreneur Jonathan Fields explains,

“Let’s say a single client accounts for a significant chunk of your revenue and they unexpectedly walk, leaving you with a gaping revenue hole.  You’ve got to reassure everyone inside and outside that this event has been a blow, but you are still completely operational and able to serve everyone’s needs with ease. And, you may need to immediately access bridge funds to maintain operations short term.”

2) Analyze the situation and take the proper action

Analysis is the process of organizing data using the tools available to produce usable information that you can act upon.  In an airplane there are hundreds of instruments, gauges and monitors all designed to give a pilot an accurate picture of the status and health of the plane (like the engine and fuel gauges in your car x 100).  Even with all these great tools there are still many times that the exact cause of the problem is hard to come by.

In business the analysis phase may mean a trip down accounting lane, looking at the debits, credits, inventory, etc.  In the ER this analysis comes through lab tests, x-rays or questioning the patient directly.  While some fields may have more precise instruments than others there is always an opportunity to analyze and get a better picture of what is actually happening.

The second part of this is taking the proper action.  As a pilot, you have a checklist available for nearly every conceivable emergency, from an engine overheat to a cabin pressurization problem.  If only every area of life were this simple.  It could be that at the end you must simply use every resource available and make a tough call whether it ends up being the right one or not.  In regards to leading a business, Fields explains you must, “…respond to the immediate threat to the stability of your business and take whatever actions are needed to maintain both operations and confidence.”

3) Land as soon as conditions permit

This is the final step of any aviation emergency.  If you can get the plane on the ground safely, then you have been successful.  Landing should always be in the back of any pilot’s mind during an emergency. Again, it’s not much good to analyze the situation perfectly and take the proper action if you overfly the last suitable airfield and run out of gas before you can get the plane on the ground.

Sometimes constantly thinking about landing can keep a pilot from over analyzing or wasting too much time going through the process.  If there is an opportunity to land safely or reach the end goal then it must be taken.

In other types of organizations this may simply mean bringing the problem to it’s conclusion then taking the proper steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.  Landing is the conclusion and the end goal of any problem.  Landing means you put yourself in a position to fly another day.

In the end, there are some obvious differences between the cockpit of a jet and an emergency room or board room.  As Fields shares, “…with business, the process stretches out over a significantly longer period of time and you’ve got a vastly larger ‘psychology and perception management’ challenge to deal with in your action taking element.“  In a large airplane like the C-5 or C-17 you may have a few crew members at most to convince of your plan in the heat of battle.  Leading a business, however, puts you in a position where you may need to convince dozens, maybe even hundreds of employees of your plan of action.

Regardless, the problem solving process used by Air Force pilots is very valuable and can be used as a great starting point for anyone needing some guidance in a moment of crisis whether it be getting shot at in Baghdad or losing your company’s largest client.

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