I would love to see your list of ten elements of pilot expertise because we
at OSU have done the same exercise for roughly the same reason. I will share
our ten and would be pleased to compare them with yours. We established our
ten by asking pilot examiners from around the country for their ideas and we
added elements from the "expertise" literature as well as some from research
on pilot selection. Our list is influenced by the Dryfus and Dryfus comment
that the primary difference between a competent and an expert is judgment.
We said that the expert pilot is one who:
1. Possesses self-confidence in his or her skills as a pilot.
2. Is highly motivated to learn all there is to know about the flight
domain and practices his/her skills constantly.
3. Has superior ability to focus on the necessary task and change that
focus as necessary.
4. Has excellent situation awareness (flight environment, location of
aircraft, terrain, navigation, communication, weather, etc.).
5. Is highly cognizant of the machine, including noise, vibration and
engine indications.
6. Is always vigilant for the unusual, abnormal, or emergency and mentally
makes contingency plans.
7. Has superior mental capacity for problem diagnosis, risk assessment and
problem resolution.
8. Has excellent communication skills and applies those skills to each
audience and situation.
9. Knows their own limitations and is motivated to keep a safe margin
above these limits.
10. Has the ego-strength to enforce his/her own limitations in every situation.
Tony, let us see your ten for comparison.
Dick Jensen