Pilots Who Ask WhyPilots Who Ask Why
  • 🧭 Notes From the Cockpit
  • 💡 Why Spotlights
  • 🧡 Our Partners
  • 👋🏼 About Us
  • 🔍 Explore

Notes From the Cockpit

Mission-based CRM
Notes From the Cockpit

Why CRM Can Look Different in Mission-Based Flight Operations

Good Crew Resource Management (CRM) doesn’t always look the same. We’re taught that it should look clear and structured. But take the same principles into a really dynamic mission, at night, under pressure, with multiple moving parts and different cultures… And it can start to look a little different! Moving Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 2 monthsApril 12, 2026 ago
Notes From the Cockpit

56 Seconds to Live: The Brutal Reality of Helicopter Inadvertent IMC

Sometimes accident chains take minutes, or even hours. But in specific cases: it’s just seconds ⏱️ A study by the US Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) looked at fatal helicopter accidents where pilots unintentionally flew into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). By analysing accident reports, radar data, and flight paths, they tried Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 3 monthsMarch 15, 2026 ago
Negative Training
Notes From the Cockpit

Negative Training: How Practice Can Quietly Make You a Worse Pilot

In the aviation industry, we sometimes have this attitude that everything can be solved with training. Partly because it’s the building block of everything we do. 🔸 Someone forgot to do something on the line? More training. 🔸 Certain checks not done right? Add it to the syllabus. 🔸 Made Read more…

By Janine Lythe, 4 monthsFebruary 15, 2026 ago
Notes From the Cockpit

From Clueless to Capable: Finding Your Way Through the 4 Stages of Competence

There’s a phase of flying where everything feels… fine. Even when it probably isn’t! ⚡️ The checks flow, the weather behaves, and nothing really surprises you. You go home thinking, yeah, that was alright. No stress. No drama. No reason to overthink it. The problem is that this is often Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 5 monthsJanuary 18, 2026 ago
Pilot Development
Notes From the Cockpit

I Thought More Experience Would Give Me Better Answers. It Gave Me Better Questions Instead

For a long time, I (naively) assumed that becoming a better pilot worked something like this: 🔸 Learn from my mistakes🔸 Absorb the wisdom from experienced pilots🔸 Make decisions, log the hours, do it for years ➡️ And then eventually, I’ll have more and better answers to things! Right? Well Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 6 monthsDecember 14, 2025 ago
Mental resilience
Notes From the Cockpit

Building Mental Resilience: The Skill You Don’t Notice Until You Lose It

The first time I truly understood what it meant to have mental resilience wasn’t in a classroom, it was during my helicopter instrument rating. A good friend and I were going through the course together. We were down to our last pennies. There was no budget for mistakes, no room Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 7 monthsNovember 16, 2025 ago
Point of No Return
Notes From the Cockpit

Point of No Return (PNR) vs Point of Equal Time (PET): When to Use Which?

If something goes wrong now… do I turn back, or keep going? 👀 That’s where Point of No Return (PNR) and Point of Equal Time (PET) come in. Two bits of “ATPL theory” that suddenly become very real when the weather turns, the fuel burns faster than planned, or you Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 8 monthsOctober 19, 2025 ago
Notes From the Cockpit

Why Saying “I Don’t Know” is Part of Being Professional

Many pilots have experienced that moment at some point in their career: A check ride, a moment with in-flight pressure, or even a job interview – someone throws a question your way, and suddenly all eyes are on you 👀 You feel that pressure to have an answer, and “you Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 9 monthsSeptember 21, 2025 ago
Notes From the Cockpit

How to Avoid Burnout in a World Where FTL’s are Targets

When was the last time you felt truly 100% rested before a duty? 💤 For many pilots, fatigue isn’t the exception – it’s the baseline. And when Flight Time Limitations (FTLs) are treated as targets rather than safety buffers, the risk of burnout quietly grows. Sometimes there are warnings, sometimes Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 9 monthsSeptember 7, 2025 ago
Lithium Ion Battery Fires
Notes From the Cockpit

In-flight Lithium-Ion Battery Fires: Are you Prepared?

Have a guess within a few seconds: How many lithium-ion batteries do you think are on board during your typical flight? 🔋 We asked ourselves the exact same question in our HEMS equipped AW169. The answer? More than 30… On a typical airline flight it’ll be hundreds, if not thousands. Read more…

By Jop Dingemans, 9 monthsAugust 24, 2025 ago

Posts pagination

1 2 … 9 Next
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Loading Comments...