Rod Machado's Plane Talk

Plane Talk covers aviation’s most critical human factor issues. Since about 85% of all accidents are due to pilot error, this book is important to anyone who flies an aircraft. These 442 pages contain some of the most important skills you absolutely must learn to become a safe, capable pilot. Machado makes these skills easy to learn and easy to recall by using his trademark humor throughout this thought-provoking book. 

You will discover: 

• How to Assess and Manage Aviation Risks - Learn how safe pilots think, how to apply the safety strategy used by General Jimmy Doolittle (known as the master of the calculated risk), how famed gunfighter Wyatt Earp can help you cope with aviation’s risks, how misleading aviation statistics can be and why flying isn’t as dangerous as some folks say it is.
• Several Techniques for Making Better Cockpit Decisions - Discover how to use your inner copilot in the cockpit and the value of one good question asked upside down.
• New Ways to Help You Cope With Temptation - Fly safer by developing an aviation code of ethics, understand how human nature can trick you into flying beyond your limits, why good pilots are prejudiced and how a concept like honor will protect you while aloft.
• How to Use Your Brain for a Change - You can learn faster by understanding how the learning curve—the brain’s performance chart—is affected by the little lies we tell ourselves, the mistakes we need to make, our need to please our instructors, and simulator and memory training.
• The Truth About Flying, Anxiety and Fear - Learn why it’s often the safest of pilots that make excuses instead of flights, why anxiety should be treated as a normal part of flying, and a three-step process to avoiding panic in the cockpit.
• How to Handle First Time Flyers and Anxious Passengers - Discover how to behave around new passengers, how to avoid the most common mistakes that scare passengers in airplanes and how to reduce the cockpit stress between pilot and spouse.
• Favorite Skills Used By Good Pilots - Learn why good pilots scan behind an airplane as well as ahead of it, are sometimes rough and bully-like on the flight controls, occasionally fly without using any of the airplane’s electronic navigation equipment, don’t worry about turbulence breaking their airplanes, master airspeed control as a means of making better landings and much more.